Cookies On Your Mind: A Review of Smart Cookies

Sometimes you just want to be alone with your favorite cookies. In FoxMind's Smart Cookies, you get to do just that — but instead of eating them, you exercise your brain by solving 64 logic puzzles that gradually increase in difficulty. This educational puzzle game is packed with quality components and challenging play and is intended for 1 player, age 6 or older.

Gameplay

In Smart Cookies, the object is to arrange 9 different cookies on the cookie tray — 3 triangles, 3 squares, and 3 circles in red, yellow, and blue — to successfully solve each puzzle. A puzzle can range from about 30 seconds to 5-10 minutes to solve, depending on the difficulty of the puzzle and the age of the player.

Each puzzle consists of up to 9 clues that visually represent a simple logic statement. Some clues give the exact location of a specific cookie, shape, or color, or its location in relation to others. Other clues exclude possible locations. These clues are given with less and less specificity in each of 8 different difficulty levels — higher levels require much more deduction than lower levels. Put all of the logic together correctly, and you'll find the correct solution to each puzzle. You can check your work by referring to the solutions in the game book.

Review

Smart Cookies has really great components. The cookies look scrumptious! I secretly wanted to take a bite out of each one. They look and feel like colorful sandwich cookies and are made of a hefty rubber material. The tactile component of the large and colorful cookies really makes this game stand out from pen and paper puzzles like Sudoku.

The included puzzles are well-thought-out, and each puzzle beyond the first few levels is unique enough to not feel too repetitive. The 8 difficulty levels are clearly marked and laid out in ascending order in the game book. The introductory levels offer very basic puzzles for a young or beginning player to learn how to follow the clues. The puzzles start to get more interesting in level 4-5, and in levels 7-8 they become quite challenging, even for an adult.

Smart Cookies is a great choice for educational fun that grows with your kids. They can start out in the easy levels and, as they grow older, they can begin to tackle puzzles of increasing difficulty. My toddler is a bit young at the moment, but I look forward to a few years down the road when I can sit her down at the table and reward her an Oreo for every Smart Cookies puzzle that she solves correctly. The ability to put together the big picture from a few simple facts is a great skill for kids to develop — plus it offers a few hours of fun for the adult who just wants to be alone with some cookies.

Pros: challenging puzzles, gradual progression of difficulty, great educational game

Cons: causes cookie cravings

Full disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.