Lost Puppies is a cooperative game for children age 5 and older. Two to six players work together to help find several lost puppies and deliver them to their own homes before nightfall.

Using logic, critical thinking and luck, players locate the lost puppies on the map-like game board and find unblocked paths to get the puppies home. Night cards can block certain paths and can only be removed with the help of flashlight cards. So during a player's turn, she turns over a card on the board hoping to find a puppy. Instead, she might draw a night card to block the path, a flashlight card to unblock the path, or even a "take a peek" card to look under a card before deciding whether or not to turn it over. If she finds a puppy, another player may try to find a path to deliver the puppy to its home.

Each player gets his own turn and makes his own decisions, but no one wins or loses. The game ends either when all the puppies are safely home or when no more plays can be made. If the game ends with lost puppies still on the board, the players are encouraged to think more critically about their moves and start the game over to bring all the puppies home the next round. Once the game becomes too easy, three more challenging versions are suggested.

Lost Puppies definitely kept the attention of my soon-to-be 5-year-old--simply because of the bright colors and very cute puppy cards. It has helped him develop logical and critical thinking skills as well as the recognition of the numbers 1-12, which are located on the night cards and corresponding places on the map. The game is quite simple to learn and very fairly priced.

Product review by Cindy West, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July 2011