Logic Puzzles – Rush Hour and Cat Crimes from ThinkFun Review

Reviewed by Louise Totton

We’ve been playing a lot of board games in our house recently, and the kids have been looking forward to that part of the day after dinner when we’re all free to sit down as a family to spend some time together and play a game. But sometimes, spending some time winding down on your own is good too, and if you’re trying to keep a check on the amount of time you’re all spending on your phones, it’s a regular occurrence for older kids to claim ‘they have nothing to do’. My eldest spends a lot of time drawing and reading, but there’s only so much time that will fill so we were delighted when we were asked to try out a couple of single-player logic games from ThinkFun.   

Cat Crimes and Rush Hour are both tactile single player logic puzzles, but each tests a different kind of logic and we couldn’t wait to get started trying them out. They are both suitable for ages 8 to adult, can be played in as little as ten minutes, and have different levels depending on your age and ability with this kind of puzzle, but that’s where the similarities end.

Cat Crimes

Cat Crimes (RRP: £11.99) is essentially a moggy whodunit – you have to deduce which of the six feline characters in the game has committed a dastardly act using a set of facts and looking at the evidence left at the scene. The board is a rug, and there are six places around the rug, each of which is a potential crime scene. Each of the 40 game cards contains the details of one crime and all of the information you will need to solve it – except the clues are rather cryptic and it’s down to you to use logic to make sense of them and catch the culprit. Contained in the box is:

• Playing board with six places
• 6 x Crime tokens
• 6 x Cat suspect playing pieces
• 40 x Crime cards with solutions
• Instruction guide with cat profiles

The crime cards are colour coded according to level – beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert. To play, all of the pieces are placed on the table in front of you and you choose a level to play. The card will tell you what the crime is, and the crime token in placed in the relevant place on the playing board. From there, the card has a series of clues telling you if specific cats are upstairs asleep (and therefore not a suspect), who’s sitting next to who, who’s opposite who and even things like a certain cat can’t sit next to a cat with a bell, or can’t be sat near a mouse.

We found having the physical playing pieces was really helpful in allowing us to visualise possible solutions and it’s amazing how much this game allows you to test and develop critical thinking. The beginner levels were reasonably simple, and my ten-year-old could manage these as well as the adults could. They certainly do require a level of logical thinking, but we thought they were a great level for both kids and adults.

The difficultly really does ramp up quite quickly though and the cards from intermediate upwards do require a lot of analytical thought. With these levels in particular, having the physical board to move the cats around and test your new hypotheses is really helpful and it doesn’t take long before you can start to visualise things without needing to rely on the board too much. The game is a single player game, but we actually enjoyed playing it together too, discussing possible solutions and I found it really interesting how different people were able to deduce things differently from the same set of clues.

My partner and I have loved playing some of the harder levels, although the advanced and expert ones still mostly have us stumped! My daughter is really enjoying the beginner ones and I think she’ll be able to move on to the intermediate ones soon herself. The solutions are all printed on the backs of the cards toom so you can easily check not only which is the guilty feline but also the full seating plan, so you can hopefully see where you’ve gone wrong if you do accuse the wrong cat!

This is a top quality game and we thoroughly enjoyed it. it’s an easy game to recommend for anyone who enjoys logic games and puzzles.

Rush Hour

Rush Hour (RRP: £14.99) is a slightly different take on a logic game, but it’s just as much fun! It feels like a version of the tile games that you used to get in party bags when you were a child where you have to move the pieces round the grid to make a picture. The playing board is a 6 x 6 plastic grid and the playing pieces are various cars and trucks that can only move backwards and forwards (not diagonally, sideways or round corners). The game includes 40 challenge cards, with beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert levels and once you have set the playing pieces according to the challenge card, your task is to allow the red car to exit the traffic jam by moving the other vehicles according to logical thought and critical thinking. Contained in the box is:

• Plastic playing grid with pull out tray for challenge cards
• 40 x challenge cards with solutions 
• 1 x red car
• 11 x blocking cars (various colours)
• 4 x blocking trucks (various colours)
• Set of instructions
• Game Go bag for taking Rush Hour out and about

What we all loved about this game is that you can just sit there with it, figuring it out bit by bit. There’s no frustration of just not being able to understand a clue as everything you need is right there in front of you. Sometimes just sitting there a little bit longer and manipulating the pieces a bit more will make a solution become crystal clear, where you couldn’t see it at all before.

I also liked that sometimes you do have to go one step back to take two steps forward. With some of the games, you appear to be getting further away from your goal initially, but you have to do that to clear the space and eventually clear the way and I think that’s a great lesson for kids – to see the bigger picture and end goal, not just concentrate on the immediate.

The quality of the game pieces are excellent and the game feels really sturdy and built to last. I loved the fact that it comes with its own travel bag too, so you can take it out and about with you. It’d be a perfect way to fill time on a long train journey, a flight or at an airport without having to resort to getting tablets or phones out to entertain the kids.

All four of us in the house loved this game – my 7-year-old even had a good crack at it too, and because you don’t need any reading skills to play, it is fine for younger kids too, if they have a critical and methodical mindset. My 10-year-old sat with the game for nearly an hour, just testing herself with the different levels and said she thought it was fantastic fun. I only hope she can prise it away from my partner who seems to want to claim it for himself!

We have all thoroughly enjoyed playing these logic games and sometimes it’s good to spend some time on your own with things like this – not everything has to be a group activity and if the idea of playing games is to replace screen time, it makes sense that some of that time is spent solo. Both of the games are fantastic for encouraging critical thinking and analysis, wrapped up in a fun and engaging package. They’re just as good for older kids or adults to reduce screen time and are actually a lovely relaxing way to spend 15 minutes whilst you’re enjoying a cup of coffee and some time to yourself!  

Rating: 5/5

For more information, visit www.thinkfun.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.