You are on the magical island of Cariboo, unlocking doors in your search for the six treasure balls which, when placed in the tumbling tidepool, will unlock the ultimate treasure! Will you succeed? And once you've mastered the beginner level, will you rise to the challenge of the advanced?

Cariboo is a game for three- and four-year-olds by the makers of Cranium, the popular party game for older participants. At its heart, the game is a simple matching game that has been fancied-up with some interesting and well-made components. The game "board" is made of plastic, and is more of a box than a board. It is about 3.5" high by 16" wide and 10.5" deep, with three holes or "secret tunnels" along the top. Below this are 15 trap doors laid out in 3 rows of 5, each with a picture on it. Down the right side is the "tumbling tidepool," a small chamber with a translucent blue cover with a hole in one end and the treasure chest at the other. The other components are six rubbery, plastic balls, a plastic key for opening the trap doors and two decks of cards, one for the beginner game and one for the advanced.

Before the game is started, it must be set up. On each trapdoor is a card, and each side of the card has a picture, one which is used for the beginner game, and one which is used for the advanced game. Depending on which game you are playing, you may have to flip the cards over. Once the cards are set, the doors are closed and the six balls are dropped in the secret tunnels. The rules recommend giving the game a "slight jiggle" to make sure they are mixed up, but in practise you need to tip the board in each direction to make sure the balls settle properly. The game is now ready to play.

The game is started by the youngest player, who draws a card from the deck and matches it, if possible, to a picture on a trapdoor. The beginner deck has four kind of cards, letters (A, B and C), numbers (1, 2, 3 and 4), colours (red, blue, yellow and green) and shapes (triangle, square and circle). Each picture on the trap doors has each of these qualities, such as a picture of three green, square-shaped buses, so a match is often possible.

The advanced cards consist of numbers and letters only, but are expanded to include all the numbers from 1 to 10, and the entire alphabet. They are also coloured red, yellow, green or blue. Matching is similar, except you can match the letter on the card to any letter on the trap door, not just the initial letter, or the colour of the letter or number with the colour of the picture on the trap door.

If a match is possible, the player uses the key to open the door, and looks to see if there is a treasure ball inside. If so, the player removes the ball and places it in the hole at the end of the tumbling tidepool. The trap door remains open, to indicate that the door has already been searched. Play passes to the person on the left. When the last ball has been placed into the tidepool, it will need a slight push to get it in. This triggers a plunger which opens the treasure chest and ends the game. The person who found the last ball and opened the chest is the winner. The game plays very quickly, about 5 minutes from setup to finish.

All is all, I am pretty happy with this game. Yes, analysed as a straight-up game it probably fails in almost every way (inconsistent theme, far too much luck, crappy winning conditions (I mean, come on, the person who puts in the LAST BALL is the winner? I put in five balls, you luck out and get the LAST ONE and are the winner, what's up with that?!?)), but that's really missing the point, as far as I'm concerned. For a three-year-old, all I really expect out of a game is that it teach a few game concepts and be enjoyable, and this game does that. My son is learning how to take turns, what "clockwise" means, the concept of a winner and, most importantly, that playing board games with Daddy is fun.