Steps and Slides (or more commonly known as Chutes and Ladders)

Unlike Candy Land or Checkers, I can’t actually remember when I received Chutes and Ladders as a gift. It’s just always been around…and I’ve always known how to play it. After all, it’s pretty straight-forward: spin the spinner, move your cardboard kid forward that amount of spaces and either hope you land on a ladder to go up or hope you don’t land on a chute to go down. First person to the top wins.

Yes, it’s a pretty basic game. And if you’re like me and maybe most kids, what exactly is going on on the board isn’t observed. I can’t remember when I actually realized all the pictures on the board were of kids either doing good things or bad things…and that the chutes and ladders correlated with those deeds. (Like mistreating a cat and going down a chute versus feeding the dog and so going up a ladder.) And while this might be a good lesson on morality, I think it’s safe to say we ought not to get our world-view from it. After all, it doesn’t take us long to realize that in life good deeds are not always awarded and nor are bad deeds always punished. And neither count for eternity.

Now Emry is only two, so she hasn’t gotten into board games quite yet. (Let alone any ethical lessons they might or might not teach). But I wanted to see what she would think of them without plopping down ten or twenty dollars for one. (Can you believe the board games that cost us five can now cost twenty? I’ll be paying fifty for cheap cardboard and stuck spinners by the time my grandkids come around…) Wonderfully, the local library system loans out board games! So, while we waited for my childhood favorite Candy Land to come, we got Chutes and Ladders.

Or should I say “Steps and Slides” for that is exactly what Emry calls it. And it makes perfect sense, really. I mean, who calls a slide a chute? Anyhow, I did attempt to teach her the correct way to play the game, but she was far too interested in a board full of steps and slides to care about spinning, counting or moving characters up and down. And since the steps and slides are the perfect size for her Minnie and Mickey figurines…well, you guessed it. She spends hours moving Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale and the whole gang all over the board as they go up steps and down slides. Honestly, it might be worth ten or twenty bucks…even if we don’t understand the concept of the game yet.

Or, better yet, I think my old 80’s game board is still at my parent’s house…and 80’s clothes are back in style!