Viva Topo is a beginning strategy board game for young children (probably 4-9 age range). They must make choices to balance risk and rewards. The game has won numerous awards in Germany, Australia, and Japan including Australia Awards “Best Children’s Game Winner.” It is German made and has extremely high quality components (the game pieces are mice and a cat made from colorfully painted wood with felt ears and nylon tails and whiskers, wooden cheese wheels and wooden dice.)
I was lucky enough to find mine at Goodwill for $1.99! I haven’t been able to find the version I have anywhere except ebay, but I have found the same game in a different box on Amazon. It says the components are wooden so I think everything inside is the same as I have pictured, but can’t promise that! Link to purchase
Viva Topo can be played by up to 4 players. The game can be learned quickly, and a full game takes from about 10-20 minutes to play.
Players have five wooden game pieces, which are mice wearing different colors. (I have to note that they are really, really cute, and children will want to play with them!)
Players must roll the dice and on each turn choose which of their mice to move. The die has the numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 like a normal die, but has two number 1 sides which also have a cat face.
These will move not only the mouse but also the wooden cat, which will remove a mouse from the game by landing on or passing it. The cat will also take all of the mice still on start when he passes it. The goal of the mice is to collect cheese. They can go into a safe house along the way and get cheese, but if they choose to do that they can’t come out of the house again. If they choose to risk the cat and keep moving, the amount of cheese in each house along the way will keep increasing until they finally end up in “mouse paradise” where they receive six pieces of cheese!
The kids I have played this game with (kindergarten-third grade) have really enjoyed it! I like that there is more strategy involved than just rolling dice and moving around the board. I also love the way the cheese leads to very natural math talk about fractions! I would definitely recommend Viva Topo for a primary grade classroom or for a family with young elementary children.
