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The company ThinkFun makes a solitaire puzzle game that incorporates much of the same strategy utilized in the game Ricochet Robots. It is called Pete's Pike, and in this game, you use goats to pull Pete (by invisible "ropes") and the other goats around the board, ultimately helping Pete reach his goal of the mountaintop. It incorporates the same mechanics as Ricochet Robots, in that you can only move the pawns vertically or horizontally in order to reach the goal space. This goal space is the center target on a 5 x 5 grid. The game includes 40 different challenge cards, ranging from beginner to expert level. While the goal is stationary from one level to the next, the challenge cards show you the visual of how to arrange the goat pawns in various ways on the board. Each card has a solution on the back, so you can see if you did it correctly, or get some assistance if you are having trouble coming up with the solution. One difference to note is that in Pete's Pike, you cannot move any pawn to an "edge" because one pawn must always meet up with another.
Pete's Pike would be a really wonderful game with which to start children before taking on Ricochet Robots, which has many more obstacles and an ever-changing board and goal. Furthermore, as a teacher of upper-elementary students, I am certain that Pete's Pike, just like the majority of games produced by ThinkFun, would draw children in with the cartoon-like appeal, as well as the un-intimidating gameplay. Since it is designed to be a puzzle for one player, it is non-competitive, but can still really be solved collaboratively. Also, a player can get instantaneous help or feedback by turning over the challenge card. Of course Ricochet Robots has a child-friendly theme, and can also be played without the bidding, as a challenging puzzle to solve, but since the board is humongous and exponentially more complex, it would most likely be quite overwhelming for younger players at first. After all, I just recently purchased Ricochet Robots and played it with my husband. During that first game, we both noticed the strategic similarities between Ricochet Robots and Pete's Pike, and I verbalized my observation by saying (with some frustration, might I add), "This is like Pete's Pike on steroids!"
Another child-friendly bonus is that all of the components of Pete's Pike can be neatly stored within the sturdy, plastic, hand-sized board unit, making it a wonderful travel game, and much less likely for pieces to get lost. This is in sharp contrast to Ricochet Robots, which comes in a much larger box, with a number of tiny goal tokens that can easily go missing. It is also nice how the board in Pete's Pike has perforations, like in Blokus, so the pieces sort of lock in place as you are moving them on the board.
Although ThinkFun's target audience is children ages 8 and up, I have enjoyed playing Pete's Pike, as well as several other solitaire puzzle games produced by this company, such as Rush Hour and Chocolate Fix. These games promote problem-solving and critical thinking skills, and provide enough challenge for adult minds, especially as you progress into the higher difficulty levels. Once a child (or player of any age, for that matter) has mastered the art of getting Pete to the summit of the icy mountain, it would be a rather smooth transition for he or she to play Ricochet Robots.
Happy gaming!
FYI: In the large image shown above, the solution to help Pete reach the mountaintop is: yellow goat right (putting it next to the royal purple goat), yellow goat up (putting it underneath the green goat), and Pete up (he has reached the center target, underneath the yellow goat).
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Justin
United States
Creve Coeur
MO
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Thanks for the heads up! Looks like it could be added to the BGG database.
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Was George Orwell an Optimist?
United States
Corvallis
Oregon
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astroglide wrote: Thanks for the heads up! Looks like it could be added to the BGG database.
I don't think they'll take it in the database - I remember discussions long ago, where the Think Fun titles were deemed puzzles, not games. I have one that's even closer to Ricochet Robots, titled Lunar Lockout.
[edit] BTW, another company with a very similar line of puzzle games: Educational Insights.
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I looked into Lunar Lockout, and it's out of print, but yes, it has the cool robot theme. In terms of what you can still get for around $10 or less, Pete's Pike seems to be the same game with a mountain hiking theme.
In terms of being added to the database, all of the ThinkFun one-player puzzle games are considered "Outside the Scope of BGG." I add them to my collection and customize the individual titles so I can keep track of them along with the rest of my games.
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Craig Duncan
United States
Ithaca
New York
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You could always turn Pete's Pike into a multiplayer game in the vein of Ricochet Robots. Just get a timer to turn over once the first player calls out a number of moves.
I suppose the only downside is that most of the Pete's Pike puzzles are solvable in 2-4 moves, probably. So there's not a lot of room for undercutting the number shouted out by the first caller.
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Posted Sun Feb 6, 2011 10:12 am
