Milton Bradley Candy Land Winnie the Pooh Edition Review

Candy Land Winnie the Pooh Edition

My son arrived home into a nursery with a grat collection of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh books, a Pooh blanket with his named monogrammed on it (and misspelled, long story) and a welcoming Pooh bear that said "It's a boy!"  He developed a fondness for the silly old bear and when we were shopping for the classic Candy Land game, he choose the Winnie the Pooh edition.

The object, structure and rules of this board game are the same as in the traditional Candy Land board game.  Players draw a card that has one or two colored squares and move up accordingly on the rainbow road to the win.  Occasionally, players will draw a special card like cupcake and move forward or backward to that picture space.

Playing Candy Land doesn't require reading, only requires color matching (not even naming really although it is a good time to work on it) and only requires counting up to two.  This makes Candy Land a fabulous first board for ages three and up.  

How is the Candy Land Winnie the Pooh Edition different?

Decorations:

The board itself has cut outs  and cardboard stand up of Pooh and his friends are inserted into the board.  They serve no real purpose in the game and are just decoration.  

Player Pieces:

Instead of same size different color player pieces, the Pooh version has Pooh, Eyeore, Tigger and Piglet.  It's fun for kids to pick their favorite but they are not the same size and Eyeore is so big that it is sometimes hard to tell where he's standing or the to get around him.

Colors:

This is my biggest issue with this Pooh version of Candy Land.  Instead of the bright, primary colors, the Winnie the Pooh Candy Land has odd colors like an orangish gold and reddish orange.  The colors are not distinctive enough.  What's worse, the shade is off from the cards to the board which makes it even more confusing.  It's not at all unplayable, it's just a little more challenging.

None of these factors bother my son at all.  It's just me.  He has played tradtional Candy Land and still prefers his own Winnie the Pooh Edition of Candy Land.

My Viewpoint: My thought would be stick with the traditional Candy Land unless you have a true Winnie the Pooh lover who may just be more motivated by having his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood "on board."