Shark Escape
a game designed by Teacher Phillip
This is a highly interactive board game. The idea is to create the game together with your child and then play and enjoy it!
Here's the story: All the players are little fish who want to escape from a big shark. At the start, everyone begins inside the open shark's mouth. The goal is for all fish to reach the safe coral cave at the end of the way. The fish take turns rolling the dice and can swim as far as they dice. Each time a fish swims after dicing and lands on a new field, he or she has to draw a task card. By performing the task, the fish distracts the big shark to help with the escape. These tasks are made up by you and your child beforehand. When a fish finishes a task, he or she keeps the card. When there are no cards left and the game is not yet over, put all the cards back in one pile and start to draw cards again. While one fish will arrive in the cave first, this one is not the winner and the game is not yet over because all the fish must arrive safely. Whoever arrives first will continue dicing for the fish who is the closest to the shark (the farthest away from the cave) to help.When all the fish are safe and sound in the cave together, the game is over.
The creation process:
You will need:
one large piece of cardboard
20-30 smaller cards cut out of paper
a pen
a dice
some kind of playing figures (e.g. paint some stones, carve some gnomes, grab some pasta)
a lot of ideas
To do: (this can be done by your child when you feel he or she can do it)
You draw a curvy line on the cardboard. Now make circles on the line. At the beginning of the line, you write „Shark Mouth“ and at the end of the line, you write „Coral Cave“. Now write numbers in the circles. Be aware … the more circles and numbers you have, the longer the game will last. I recommend 30-50 circles for 30-50min of play. Then create tasks together with your child for the game and write one task on each of the small cards. You can make as many cards as you want. The more the better, but you want to have at least 20. When your child does not have any idea, just start to write some down so he or she knows what you mean. Your child can also draw their ideas on a card and you write the explanation above it. Here are some task ideas to distract the shark from eating you:
pinch your neighbour's ear
hop on one foot and stick out your tongue
go outside and scream really loud
tell a super quick story
act like an animal and the other players have to guess what you are
run around in the garden real fast and come back
smell your neighbour's feet
do a somersault
tell a riddle
To raise some excitement and to make the game more complex, I have some add-ons:
mark some circles where the fish get into a whirlpool and are blown back to a lower number
mark some circles where the fish jump on a trampolin so they are catapulted ahead
mark some circles as prisons or bathrooms where the fish has to wait out one round without dicing
make some circles where the fish has to guess a riddle asked by another fish (that can be as simple as guessing a person / animal to more complex stuff)