Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Suckiest Game in All the Land


Of all the annoying piece of crap games in the whole word Candy Land is the absolute most annoying piece of crappiest. 

I hate that game.  I hate it soooooo much for so many reasons.

First of all it takes at least 20 minutes between when we take out the game and when we actually start playing the game because my kids need to make the little figures dance around the board for a good while before they’ll even consider looking at the cards. 

“La, la la, la…I’m going to the castle.  Oops! I’m stuck in licorice.  Grant you have your guy follow me and be stuck in licorice too. Now let's go eat some lolipops! Yum, yum, yum...la la la!”

If I’m lucky they stick to playing with the guys on the board but sometimes the guys want to check out the living room and ride on a train or play with a helicopter before we can play actual Candy Land.  And then I’m left just sitting alone at the table with my own guy and I start to wonder if maybe my guy wouldn’t like a nice glass of wine before we start playing…

When we actually begin the game I’m reminded of the second reason why I despise Candy Land…it’s boring as hell!

Nothing happens.  It takes no skill to play. 

Ok move to the red square…now move to the orange square…oh, red again! You’re really on a roll now, look at you go!  I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to see if your next card will be double blue…

Speaking of the cards, no one in my household has ever picked up just one card at a time:

“Ok, no, you just take the top one.  Put the other one back…no, just because you have several in your hand at this point does not mean you get to pick which one you want.”

The set up for Candy Land is also super annoying.  Where do you put the pile of cards?  There’s literally no good spot. 

The person closest to the cards will knock them over at least 24 times in one game. I'm sorry, are those cards made of air?  They go flying if someone so much as breaths heavily. 

And then whatever side of the board you put them on someone inevitably cannot reach them.  Then whoever is farthest away from the pile has two options:

1.       Bitch and whine until the pile is moved back and forth between turns, adding at least 15 minutes to your playing time OR

2.       Reach across the game and knock everyone’s pieces over every time it’s their turn to pick a card. 

Those Gingerbread guys absolutely cannot stay standing upright for more than 5 seconds at a time.  They're like little drunken assholes.  And then when the pieces get knocked over no one knows where they were.

“Where were you?  Were you on this purple space right here or this purple space two inches away from that purple space?  No, I know you weren’t on THAT purple space because that purple space is 24 miles away from the general vicinity of where you were last seen.”

Have I mentioned the fact that my children are giant cheaters?

My children are giant cheaters.  If they think you aren’t looking they will move that little gingerbread dude all over the God damned place until they are closer to the castle.  And then you’ll suddenly look down and be like “How the hell did you get to the lollipop chick already?  You were just at the caramel factory, or whatever the F that grandma-looking lady makes at her house…move back!”

That’s another thing we need to address, the special picture cards.  You know, the ones that whisk you away to far off Gumdrop Island or some shit like that.  Every time we play I expect the police to respond to a potential domestic dispute at my home because someone got the Snowflake card and someone else didn’t. 

I especially hate when the kids do the thing where they pick up more than one card and you can see that the next card in the pile is one of those super awesome and incredibly rare cards and then you have to just sit there and brace yourself for the screaming that is coming.  To be perfectly honest, a lot of times if I notice that one of those cards is coming up I’ll grab it and sneak it to the bottom of the pile. 

Because I’m also a giant cheater…where do you think the kids get it from?
 
Once we get past the dancing figures, the spilled cards, the knocked over pieces and the absurd amount of cheating we then have to take our dear sweet time completing our turn. 
Grant has to stop on every space on the way to his destination and say the color, and then tell me his favorite color, and then name things that are that color, and then tell me his least favorite color, then sing a song about all the colors...
Oh my gaaaawwwwdd!!  Can we get a move on? I'd super love to finish this game before my AARP card arrives in the mail.

Candy Land has been around for, like, 75 million years.  You’d think they could bother making some improvements to the design.  In my opinion this game should come with a board, four players, some cards, a shot glass, a bottle of tequila and a lime. BYO salt.