| Recommended Age: | 8+ |
| Players: | 2-4 |
| Cost: | $21.99 |
| Company Site: | www.blueorangegames.com |
| Our Recommended Age: | 4+ (With adjusted rules for a bit) |
| Play Time: | 15 minutes (Time may vary with younger kids) |
| Skills: | Visual Perception Focus & Attention Problem Solving Fine Motor Processing Speed |
| Contents: | 4 Beakers 4 Stirring Rods 24 Colored Balls (8 Orange, 8 Purple, 8 Green) 50 Challenge Cards Illustrated Rules |
Another in a line of science games for kids, Dr. Beaker has you race to collect 10 challenge cards to win. Use a beaker and stirring rod to move molecules until they match the current challenge card. Easy enough for younger kids and challenging for older kids makes Dr. Beaker a fun family game night game and even better for kids game nights.
Dr. Beaker is another great science game by Blue Orange Games. In this one you have to help Dr. Beaker create formulas using a beaker, stirring rod, molecules, quick thinking and faster hands. It is recommended for ages 8+ but easily learned by kids around age 4 and enough of a challenge for kids around 10. My 4 year old nephew played this with the Diva and he picked up on it pretty quickly so she went slower to give him a fair change and she also let him win a bit more.
It helps with fine-motor skills and sequential thinking which is fantastic and I loved using this for our homeschool lessons. We were more focusing on the sequential thinking at this point but my nephew was still working on fine-motor skills. It is also great for color identification, patterns and matching skills.
For younger kids I recommend removing the speed aspect and possibly go to 5 cards instead of 10. You could also not have a winner and focus more on getting a certain number of cards done like a stack of 10 cards for a round kind of thing. We went with this for my nephew and it seemed to work nicely.
The game comes in a lift top lid box with a beautiful insert inside. Seriously, I love the inside of this box. Everything has a place inside and it looks so pretty! Sigh…I just love this level of organization. Ok moving on. The cards are good quality, circle and have a top down view of a beaker with the colored balls or molecules in various order.
The beakers are plastic but the nice kind and have a spinning holding thing in the bottom for the molecules which are like little plastic marbles. They are small enough for kids to put in their mouth so watch out for that because the tops of the beakers are large enough to get the molecules out. The stirring rods are also plastic and not connected so again, if you have kids who stick things in their mouth keep your eye on this part of the game too.
Over all this game is well made won’t break under general play, just don’t TRY to break things and you should be fine. Now we can get to the good part. Play Time!!
Objective:
Be the first to collect 10 challenge cards or if playing with younger kids maybe just play until 10 cards are collected.
Setup:
Each player, up to 4, gets 1 Beaker, 1 Stirring Rod, 6 Molecules (2 of each color – Orange, Purple and Green). Put the molecules in the Beaker and give it a good shake. Be sure to put your other hand over the top though or you will have to collect the Molecules after shaking. Each Molecule should be in a slot in the Beaker and if not use the Stirring Rod to help them get there.
Now take the cards and Shuffle the cards!! If you are playing with younger kids and just want to keep the game short with no focus on winners put 10 cards face down in a pile. If you are playing normally then put all the cards in a pile where everyone can see the pile. Make sure it is face down. Everyone plays at the same time so you are now ready to play!
Play:
Once everyone is ready someone flips the top card face up and all players race to make their beakers match the card. Use your Stirring Rod to move the Molecules and the mechanism on the bottom until the Molecules are in the same order as the card that was flipped face up.
You cannot move a Molecule over the wall or another ball though so stir carefully. Once you have successfully matched your Molecules to the card yell “Eureka!” because of course that is what you yell. If you are correct you win that round! Yay! You get cards based on how many players there are and what place you finish in.
For a 4 player game the 1st place person gets 3 cards, 2nd place 2 cards, 3rd place 1 card and 4th place 0 cards. In a 2 player game 1st place gets 1 card and the other player gets 0 cards. See the chart for more info though. All players leave their beakers the way they are and a new card is flipped face up for a new round!
Winning:
The game ends when a player gets 10 cards and they are the winner! You can of course adjust the points if you want or again if playing with younger kids just use a set number of cards until they can get the speed aspect down.
The awesome part about the instructions is there is a team version you can play as well and the instructions tell you how! I LOVE it when games to this. It adds more fun and challenges or options when you have more than 4 people playing. Love it.
The team version involves one player, the Lab Technician, telling the other player, the Chemist, how to order their molecules but cannot see the card. Only the Technician can see the card and only the Chemist can move the molecules. Challenge accepted!
Dr. Beaker is another great Family Game Night game, perfect for homeschool or working on skills with younger kids and challenging and fun enough for older kids to enjoy as well. Adults, you haven’t lived til you played a team version but where all teams go at the same time…OMG such a fun Game Night!
Show us your Molecules! @MyGeeklings @BlueOrangeGames #DrBeaker #BoardGame #FamilyGameNight
