Long before I met Mario, or slipped my first grubby quarter into a Dig Dug machine, or sat down to master the finer arts of Ms. Pac Man, I loved playing games. Board games, card games and run around outside games like tag and capture the flag. There are fascinating studies galore about the intoxicating release found in mastery of a skill set – and what is a game but a set of rules and obstacles that create challenges surmounted through luck, persistence and skill – with none of the danger of chaotic and confusing life?

Enter Candy Land.  Arguably the first game my daughter was fully able to grasp as a total game play experience. A great set of training wheels for the basics: waiting for your turn, rules, the discipline to adhere to said rules –and winning! The joy, the ecstasy! And hardest lesson ever: losing. And how not to throw a tantrum.

Seriously, WTF.  What’s up with our obsession with the monarchy?

Like all First Loves, it occupies an enduring (and overrated) place in my daughter’s heart.   Enduring that she always wants to play it. Overrated because, when you break it down, it’s not really much of a game at all. You stack the deck of cards, take turns pulling them off the pile, and randomly move forward according to the one or two colored cubes awarded. The wildcards are the specials, suitably predictable candy or ice cream treats that correspond to tiles on the linear path to the Candy Castle. These wildcards can either cause you to advance – or backtrack. Candy Land is a game of random chance that requires no skill whatsoever (beyond mastering self control and adhering to the rules).

Candy Land is a game of random chance that requires no skill whatsoever.

So the first couple of rounds of Candy Land? Mildly entertaining. Everything after that? Actually pretty damn painful.   So whenever the games come out and Candy Land is requested, I will try any number of acts of subterfuge to play something else.  How about Operation?  Battle Ship?  Old Maid?  Memory?  Nope.  Paradoxically, the harder I push for another game, Candy Land just wins greater support.   And even stranger still for a game of chance, I ALWAYS seem to lose.

All of which leads me to one inevitable conclusion: I hate Candy Land.

And while it was a great learning tool in my house, I might suggest maybe you go with Chutes and Ladders. Or maybe Sorry.