Monza is a Haba game for 2-6 players. It can be played from age 3-4 with guidance, from 5 years of age with no adult supervision and beyond as a quick competitive racing game that lasts 10-15 minutes.
The aim of the game is to have your formula one car cross the finish line first. Although simple in its aim, this game develops colour recognition, counting and turn taking. In addition, it introduces tactical play for children as they need to work out the best combination, from the dice roll, to determine the best outcome for them.
The contents include a 22cm x 42cm board, that folds in half. The race track is made up of different coloured segments and has three lanes with tyre obstacles that restrict movement.
The game comes with six wonderful wooden cars that have the standard Haba quality. It also has six dice with all the colours of the cars on it's faces.
The setup and gameplay is simple. Each player picks a car and places it on the start grid. To play, you roll the dice and then move your race car. But only if the colour of the square adjacent to the racing car is shown on the dice, can the car zip ahead. With some luck with the dice and clever combinations, a racing car can move up to six squares in one round.
From the picture below we can see how this works. The player controlling the green car has just rolled the dice. The red and white segments behind the car are not accessible as all movements are made forward. You can see that the player has three options using the dice combinations and the best options are the blue and the white paths.
The components are top notch and although a simple game it is fun to see kids roll the dice, recognise colours, work out best moves to advance their position, count and play with the wooden pieces.
With a lot of games, you can cut some of the recommended age Monza is a case in point. I think 3 year olds would love the toy aspect of the game and maybe able to play whereas 4 year olds would be able to get in the full swing of beating adults.
We recommend this game highly and is a great introduction to HABA quality productions.
