This week Education Outdoors, Inc. (makers of the original CAMP Board Game) are introducing two new games at the 2010 New York International Toy Fair. Their current games include the CAMP Board Game, a Booster Pack of cards for CAMP, CAMP Travel Edition, and the CAMP Activity Book. In addition to this, S'mores will be available in May, 2010, with Snipe becoming available around the end of June, 2010. My family has played the CAMP Board game previously, and really enjoyed it, so I was curious to find out more about the new products they have designed. Fortunately, the folks over at Education Outdoors were kind enough to send us some of their products to review. Arriving just a day before our family headed out for a long weekend of skiing, we had plenty of time to give several of them a thorough test run. And if you keep reading, you'll have a chance to win a copy of S'mores for yourself!

Based in Eastport, Michigan, Education Outdoors was founded in 2005 by Tim Paczesny as a way to realize his dream of helping to educate today's children about the outdoors. Prior to this, Tim had founded a non-profit organization called The League of Extraordinary Outdoorsmen, who sponsored a family fishing day each year in Michigan. The overall mission of the company is to "bring families together to interact and learn about the outdoors." In fact, Jesse D., their VP of Marketing described them this way: "... family men who love to camp and be outdoors." Man, that's a great tag line (guess that explains the marketing job!), and that sounds just like us here at CEJCamping. As all of us are in the process of raising our own children and trying to pass along our love of the outdoors to them, these are goals we can readily support. Even better, they donate a percentage of their profits back to organizations that focus on educating children and families about the outdoors. I have to say, since I contacted them asking about their new games, they have been great to work with. Based on my communication with them, this is a group of people that seem to live their ideals, and in the process create some great games.

Education Outdoors provided us with three products to review, so we'll start with those.

S'mores

S'mores is one of two products being introduced at the Toy Fair this week, and we were grateful to be allowed to try it out before it hits the market. The objective is simple, be the first one to collect the cards needed to build a S'more, and you win! In case of a tie, you add up the points in each hand and highest points wins.

The game's simplicity is a great part of its appeal. First off, it is super easy to travel with, as the box is only about twice the size of a regular deck of cards. This was perfect for us, as space was at a premium as we headed up to the mountains. Secondly, its easy to learn. The game is marketed as being appropriate for ages 6 and over, but my 4 year old son had no problem understanding how to play, or when he won! Let's put it this way, if your kids have ever had S'mores, they'll know what to do!

But the real fun was in how you play, and the nature of the cards themselves. You start out by dealing 5 cards to each player (you can have from 2 to 6 players) and then place the rest of the deck face down between the players. The youngest player goes first and can either take a card off the top of the deck, or choose another player to steal a card from. You simply tell the other player to "fan 'em" and then select one of their cards. They spread them out upside down, so you're taking a risk on what card you end up selecting. You then replace that card with the worst card from your hand. The first player to collect the cards needed to build a S'more yells, "S'more!"

The cards themselves were pretty creative, and provided a lot of laughter for all of us. First, there are a number of ways to build a S'more. For example, you can have a perfect marshmallow (3 points), a burnt marshmallow (2 points), or an uncooked marshmallow (1 point). There are versions like this for each ingredient needed to build a S'more. Then, there are Bonus Cards that, while they don't help you build your S'more, will help in case of a tie. For example, the perfect campfire is worth 10 points. The favorite of my kids, however, was the Wimpy Stick. While it was only worth 2 points, the kids got a kick out of saying "wimpy stick" and then falling into laughter. It even got to the point of trying to steal the Wimpy Stick card instead of building the S'more! The kids' favorite way to finish building the S'more also quickly became using the Chocolate that fell into the Dirt. In addition to these cards, there are filler cards that, while doing nothing for your hand, are a lot of fun. There are flashlights, tents, lanterns, Dutch Oven, etc. The kids really liked these as well.

The best part was how quickly the kids were able to get into the game. Pretty quickly, shouts of "fan 'em, buddy!", "I got the wimpy stick!", "what, another canoe!", and of course, "S'mores!" could be heard as we played.

This game strikes me as the perfect game to take with you camping, or any type of trip really. It is easy to pack and would work just as well in the tent during a rainstorm, at a picnic table during the day, or in a hotel room. On our trip, it was great, as the kids requested to play it again and again. It did exactly what it was designed to do, it kept the kids away from the television and interacting with us as a family.

Overall, this was an excellent game and would make a great purchase for any family, or even as a gift for someone else. Best of all, it has a MSRP of only $5.99! For the entertainment it has already provided us, I'd say that's a steal.

But you don't have to steal it, you can win it! Just post a comment to this story telling us about your best S'mores memory (as a kid or an adult) and at the end of the month, we'll randomly select a winner to receive a free copy of S'mores when they become available in May. Special thanks to the great folks at Education Outdoors for making this possible!

CAMP Travel Edition

Based on the popular CAMP Board game, the Travel edition is a great idea. Imagine taking a board game and turning it into a self-contained, traveling suitcase, and you've got CAMP Travel Edition. The total unit is 6.5" wide, 5" tall, and 2.5" thick. Its made of wood and is hinged on one side with a strong clasp on the other. The box opens and unfolds to reveal the playing surface, a spinner and decoder (so you can "decode" the correct answer included on the side of each card) that are attached to the surface (they spin out so they hang over the side, out of the way of game), and a carved out section containing playing pieces, cards, and instructions.

While the overall design is ingenious and worked well, the one thing I would like to see improved is the spinner. Its made of a thin cardboard type material that bends a bit when swung out away from the board game, making it tough to adequately spin the spinner at times. The kids struggled with this in particular. It might work better if it were made of a more rigid type of plastic, which would still be thin enough to include attached to the board game. In fairness, this was more of an inconvenience to me and didn't seem to bother the kids at all, and it didn't detract from the fun we had at all, but more on that later.

Playing the game is simple, each player (up to 4) selects a peg and places it into a hole at the starting camp fire ring. Youngest player spins first and moves their peg that number of spaces, following the footprints around the board. If you land on a green pair of footprints, you get asked a question. Land on white, the next player gets to go. Each card has four questions, with each one progressively becoming more difficult. You can line up the level of difficulty with the age of the child. For example, our 4 year old was level one, our 6 year old was level two, mom was three and dad was four. If you answer the question correctly, you get to go again. The object is to get around the board and back to the camp fire ring. While it sounds simple, there are some additional challenges you'll encounter along the way that can send you back down the path a bit.

After a day of skiing, a good afternoon nap, and some dinner, our family took CAMP Travel Edition down to the lobby of the hotel where we could play in front of the fire while sipping hot cider. Once we started, the action got going right away. We quickly discovered that our 4 year old should go on TV game shows, as he was cranking through the questions, one correct answer after another. He was even getting the harder level questions right. I'm sure he was guessing, but he would say his answer so confidently, and be correct, that we were cracking up. The only thing that would stop him was landing on white footprints! Our 6 year old was really into the game as well, jumping up and down enthusiastically every time he would land on green footprints, excited to get a chance at answering a question. When he would get one correct (which was often enough to keep him going), he would get even more excited. In fact, he was so excited that it attracted some other families to gather around us. There were a lot of people checking in for the weekend, just coming back from dinner or waiting for a shuttle, so we had a couple of families come over and watch for a spell. One family from Georgia even "unofficially" played along, trying to guess the right answer along with us. Most of the questions include trivia from the 50 states, so this was a lot of fun. They kept waiting for a question dealing with Georgia, but had to leave for their shuttle before we got to one!

I would say the levels of difficulty in the questions was just about perfect. All of us were able to answer some of our questions correctly, while learning new things from others. The game is rated for ages 4 and up, and I'd say that is a good rating. Like S'mores, this game has become popular for my kids, with the 6 year old specifically wanting to play it frequently. You can get through the cards pretty quickly, and start to have some duplication in questions asked, so hopefully there will be booster packs of cards available for this game as well.

Again, I'd give Education Outdoors high ratings for this game. Due to its size and tough construction, CAMP Travel Edition was the perfect travel companion. In fact, it has won the Dr. Toy Best Vacation Product award, and I can see why. It did exactly what it was designed to do, allow us to spend some quality family time together playing a game and learning about outdoor related trivia. It retails for $19.99 and is a great value for the money.

Camp Kids Activity Book

Winner of the 2007 Creative Toy Awards Seal of Excellence from Creative Child Magazine, the activity book is essentially a collection of coloring pages, connect the dot, spot the difference, camp story ad libs, and drawing activities based on animals and nature. Many of the pages contain great fun facts about animals, in addition to the activity. This would be great to keep with you when you to restaurants, as you could pull pages out and let the kids color, etc., while waiting for the meal. Of course, the reason I know this is because I found myself out at a restaurant wishing we would have brought it with us! The activity book lists for $3.99 and would be great to have on a camping trip when you want the kids to have some quiet time, or again, need to ride out a rain storm in the tent.

Camp Board Game

The original game that started it all, CAMP is essentially a bigger version of the CAMP Travel Edition discussed above. Because its the size of a normal board game, it comes with more cards/questions, and even has a Booster pack of cards available, providing new trivia and challenges. The CAMP Board game was the winner of the Dr. Toy 100 Best Children's Product award and is listed at $24.99, with the booster pack only costing $9.99.

Snipe

Snipe wasn't available to test yet, and isn't scheduled to be available for purchase until June of 2010. If you have ever camped with a group of kids though, you'll know what this one is about. When I was in the Boy Scouts, this was a popular prank to pull on new Scouts at Summer Camp. You would take them out into the middle of the woods with a bag and tell them they had to catch the Snipe (a make believe animal). Of course, the rest of us would help. We would walk off in the distance and then flush the creatures back toward them. All they had to do was catch it in the bag. Except everyone else would walk a short distance away and then hide in the woods and watch them look around for the Snipe. Most of us would go back to camp, except one or two willing to stick around and make sure the newbies made it back to camp! The only thing better was sending them down to the quartermaster (and our camp was a long way away from them!) to get a left handed smoke shifter. That one was more convincing, because I'm a lefty!

Anyhow, that's the thought behind this game. There are two creatures. Each team or person takes one and hides it. Then first team/person to find the other one and return it to the nest, wins. If you don't find them after a specific period of time, they begin to chirp and their eyes light up, helping you find them. This sounds like a lot of fun, and with an anticipated date of June, should be just in time for summer camping trips, or even just evenings in the neighborhood.

All of the currently released products are available for purchase through the Internet at the following retailers:

www.rei.com

www.fatbraintoys.com

www.cabelas.com

www.ems.com

Don't forget to enter for a chance to win your own copy of S'mores! Just post a comment to this story telling us about your best S'mores memory (as a kid or an adult) and at the end of the month, we'll randomnly select a winner to receive a free copy of S'mores when they become available in May. Once again, special thanks to Education Outdoors for letting us review their products and sponsoring this giveaway!