I've been looking for some family games to play with my wife and kids that everyone would enjoy. Granted that this is not an easy task as my six kids range in age from 4 to almost 13. The older boys and I were having fun taking on some of the more mature games and I was quite looking forward to introducing some of the more complicated strategy games as well as some old favorites of mine like Cosmic Encounter. We had already played Kings and Things quite a bit, which the 7, 10, and 13 year old enjoy and ask for frequently. The two older boys have also started playing some card games like Canasta and most of us can play Hearts.

But, it's a bigger problem to find something that my four year old can play as well as my two girls (9 and 11 - they were adopted from Liberia earlier in the year and don't understand all the rules of the complicated games.)

Three nights ago a game called Snorta! arrived in the mail. I had read some favorable reviews online and it looked promising. Let me just say that we've played it three nights in a row and everyone has had a blast! Mission accomplished.

The gameplay is simple. Everyone (up to eight players) picks a small plastic animal out of a bag - horse, chicken, pig, snake, etc. and each player makes the sound of their animal in turn around the table. Cards are dealt evenly face down to each player. The players then place their animals in their own small barn so that only they can see what animal they have. Once again, each player makes their animal noise in turn.

Play then begins with each player turning over a card face up on the table one at a time. The cards each contain an animal picture. When a card is turned over that matches another player's face up card, the two players with cards that match race to make the sound of each other’s hidden animal. The hard part is both to remember the hidden animals of seven other players and not make the sound of the animal that you're looking at on your matching cards.

The player to correctly recite the sound of the other player's hidden animal wins and gives all of his face up cards to the losing opponent to be placed in their hand. The game is won when a player plays the last card in his hand.

Take my word for it, this game is a blast to play with your family and we're planning to take it to a adult party tomorrow night where I think it'll have the same reception. I definitely recommend it.