Disney Mickey and the Beanstalk

A few days ago my kids (4yo twins) and I played Disney Mickey and the Beanstalk by the rules for the first time! My kids had played with the components before, but we finally played by the rules and then one of my kids wanted to play again right away (but we ended up playing the next day since we didn’t have time).

Gameplay

It’s a cooperative game where you’re getting food and the harp from the Giant’s area and bringing it back down the beanstalk to the village. You’re going up the beanstalk, picking up food, and bringing it back down. You also can get a key to get stuff out of the Giant’s chest (including the harp you need to get). Each turn you spin a spinner which tells you how many you can move (up to 3 or 4, but you can choose to move less), but also how the Giant moves.

Some spots on the spinner let the Giant steal food into his chest (and then you re-spin), and others have colors in addition to your movement number. The Giant will be moving to a color up in his house, and if he moves to a space with a player on it, then he can steal more food (or the harp) and put it in his chest. If his chest gets full, you all lose, and if you manage to fill up the food spaces in the village and get the harp back, you win!

Thoughts

There isn’t much gameplay in here, but there are some decisions in where you go that’s least likely for the Giant to land on, and also getting the food type that you still need to get. But my kids love the beanstalk – they love having the characters go down the beanstalk (and that’s what they played with a bunch before we played the actual game). The characters have started getting stuck partway down the beanstalk though.

I think my kids are the right age for it – they’re able to take their turns by themselves and my kids really liked getting the keys and things from the treasure chest and matching the foods to the village spaces. We lost the first game and I think it’s the first time my kids actually understood winning and losing, so one kid was sad and wanted to play again. When we played the next day we won and he was happy. But I think he had fun both times, mainly due to getting the characters and harp down the beanstalk.

Overall I think it’s a decent game – it’s relatively fun and has some decisions. The spinner makes it so that you can quickly lose if you get bad spins, which can be frustrating. But the beanstalk is a lot of fun for kids to play with and that makes my kids really love the game.