Pete The Cat: Terrific Taco & The Very Hungry Caterpillar Rainbow Picnic: A Food Matching Game Overviews

The weather here in Nebraska can be harsh with freezing winters and sweltering summers. Because of that, no one wants to be out, or even leave their house when the weather is bad.  What else is there to do when you don’t leave your house? Well, I think we all know the answer to that…. board games. Now, the other problem with playing board games is now choosing a game to play.

One of our best and favorite ways to figure out which game to play is by choosing from a list of what games people do not want to play. We do this by having the person who most wants to play a game, to choose a group of 3, 4 or 5 games. This is usually either Ev, Em, or myself. Then we take turns vetoing one game we don’t want to play. As everyone chooses which game not to play, the stack of games gets smaller and smaller until there is only one game left.

We did this with some games that were sent to us by Briarpatch Games: Pete the Cat: Terrific Taco Game, as well as a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar Rainbow Picnic: A Food Matching Game. Ev of course, really wanted to play these as he is very familiar with the theme and characters in both of the games. Sometimes we play games that are very difficult for Ev. Although we have a blast, he sometimes feels he isn’t really playing the game due to how complex it is. He could fully understand how to play these titles from Briarpatch so he was actually really excited to play them.

Pete The Cat: Terrific Taco Game is a pseudo matching game. The game is setup by placing all topping cards face down in a grid on the table. Each player takes a taco shell and three order cards, flipping the first over. Players are ready to make the orders with the listed ingredients shown on their order card. Yes, these a very tasty tacos!

On a player’s turn, they will choose a face down topping card to flip over. If the ingredient shown on the card matches an ingredient needed for their order, they immediately place it in their taco shell. If it doesn’t match, they leave it out face-up. Other players can instead choose any face up cards to place in their taco shell if it is needed in their order, instead of flipping over a new card. 

If a player completes their order card, they announce it to everyone, “ORDER UP”, and place those cards back out randomly to the grid, and start on their next order card. When a player completes their three orders, they win the game. 

This is a matching game with a twist. You are trying to match your order cards with ingredients out on the table. Sometimes you get lucky and another player finds an ingredient you need that they don’t, but also sometimes you find something you don’t need that they might want. If the grumpy toad ever gets flipped over, all topping cards to flipped back face down, and the grumpy toad is discarded from the game. Players then continue from memory where possible toppings are located. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Rainbow Picnic: A Food Matching Game is a game of racing to fill your player board with 6 different colored foods. In this cute game, you will place all the food tokens on their matching colored stands, and place them in the middle of the board. Each player takes a rainbow player board. The 36 playing cards are shuffled to form a deck.

On a player’s turn they will flip over the top card from the deck and perform its action. If it shows or lists a color, you get to choose a food from the picnic blanket to place on your rainbow board. This will make you 1/6 of the way of winning the game. But wait, there are other cards to change things up.

Besides colors cards which lists all 6 colors in the game, there are different actions cards. Heart cards allow you to draw any food of any color you’d like. Ant cards make you return a food token from your player board back to the main board. Fruit cards let you take a food of your choice from another player. Rainbow cards cause all players to pass their player boards to the player on their left. Picnic basket cards trigger each player to pass one food from their player board to the player on their right. These other actions will mix things up and sometimes cause whoever is losing to then be winning. Once a player has 6 foods of the 6 different colors on their player board, they win the game. 

It’s a game where players race and hope to get the colors they need, and choosing which foods you pass to another player or with the heart card what food to take when you can take any are key choices in this game. But really it all comes down to the cards, and you just might be that lucky player who gets the exact colors you need at the perfect time.

Again, these are great beginning games start at 3 years and older. Ev still enjoyed them, as they were easy to play and understand the rules unlike some of the other games we play with him. But really, these two games would be great games to start your gaming collection with small kids. You are most likely reading them the books that go along with them anyways, so they will be familiar with them as well. If you want to add The Hungry Caterpillar game or Pete the Cat Terrific Taco game to your kids’ game collection, pick up copies at your local game store or order online and have it delivered right to your door!

What’s your favorite item the Hungry Caterpillar eats?