SNAP Review – 5er Finden

5er Finden is an unusual roll-and-write search game designed by Jürgen Grunau. Up to four players can play, including a solo mode. Published by HABA, the recommended age range is 7-99 and it plays in about 20 minutes.

Search for shapes on your personal board that contain all five colored shapes rolled on the five dice. Flip the timer if you can’t find any more and make the other players race to finish!

Listen to our five-minute review, or read on below.

Art

5er Finden is colorful and clear – exactly the kind of art we’d expect from an abstract HABA game. Symbols reinforce the six colors available, and there are handy polyomino shapes, printed with their scores, that you can lay directly onto your board if you’re having trouble visualizing how the shapes work.

The dry erase boards are sturdy, and we love that the scoreboard is another dry erase board of the same size.

Mechanics

One player rolls the dice, then all players race to outline shapes that contain the five colors (or five shapes) pictured on the five dice.

When a player feels they have enough shapes (they can only score five), they flip the timer; when the timer runs out, the round ends and all players score. Shapes range from 1-4 points. The player who flipped the timer gets a bonus point this round.

Play five rounds. The last round is worth double points to keep things interesting.

If you want to play solo or just prefer a less frantic puzzle, play 5er Finden‘s puzzle mode. Now you are looking for a single shape with each roll of the dice. But once you’ve circled something, it stays circled for the rest of the game. And each of the 12 possible shapes can only be used once! If you can’t find anything, you’ll have to pick a shape to cross off and draw it somewhere on your board anyway, so it still takes up space you can’t use in later rounds.

The puzzle just gets harder as you run out of available shapes and run out of board space at the same time.

Expectations

I’m always wary of real-time games for our family. One person’s enjoyable “high-energy race” feels rushed and frustrating to someone else (someone younger, perhaps?)

But most of our family really loved 5er Finden. It uses the same type of concentration you would for a crossword or Boggle, but without trying to form words. It is the type of puzzle where you get a little endorphin hit every time you find a shape that works with the five colors, and all the more so if it’s a high point value.

I did not expect to like the solo puzzle mode so much. Even though it’s a “beat your high score” solo game, playing simply feels good.

Struggles

5er Finden presents the usual struggles we see with real-time games where players race to complete an objective. Overall, our family likes it, but it can be frustrating. If you consistently struggle to find shapes quickly, you’ll quickly fall behind.

The dry erase boards and markers are good quality, but they’re not perfect. We have to occasionally wipe the boards with a soft cloth to buff off the haze left behind by too much “erasing”. There is a lot of erasing in this game!

We are used to bringing in kids younger (sometimes much younger) than the suggested age range – I wouldn’t recommend that with 5er Finden. Our youngest (currently 6 years old) just didn’t get the concept of putting the die faces into a shape on his board, and someone would have to stop and help him… not the best idea in a race against the clock.

Rating

Regardless of the minor struggles, 5er Finden is a great game and has been a huge hit in our family. It’s easy to teach, while being a compelling puzzle you can come back to over and over again.

Since the theme of 5er Finden is “fives”, we rate it 5 fives out of 5.

Find it on Amazon or at your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of 5er Finden from HABA Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?