Continent Race was actually developed by a boy named Byron while he was stuck in the hospital! He was hospitalized for a month and used that time to create a game for other kids to learn and have fun with, too.
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I think Byron succeeded in his mission; we played Continent Race for the first time today and had some fun. However, the way the game is designed, it’s mostly just a geography game.
Continents are color-coded
Byron chose to use five continents to reflect the five country rings from the Summer and Winter Games. North America only has three countries; Canada, the United States, and Mexico, so that makes more sense to have it with South America. And of course, Antarctica is all by itself, so there are actually three white Antarctica wild cards, usable as part of any continent.
There are flags and capitals on the cards, but they’re not included in gameplay as the rules indicate. You could create your own challenges using the flags or capitals, though.
Many of the country cards are color-coded based on continent. This makes it easier to find the country you’re looking for. There are also several orange-colored cards that are “Mystery Continents.” My biggest complaint is that the orange for mystery and the red for the Americas are awfully close, and tricky to differentiate. I did appreciate, though, how the different countries on the maps were slightly different shades, making them easier to discern.
There are multiple levels to the game
According to the rules, the “beginning game” is played without the orange mystery continent cards, no challenges, and just up to three continents. We didn’t use the challenges, but used all the cards and played to five continents. At first playing, my kids were seven and nine, and this worked well.
The “Challenge” is on just some of the country cards. If you draw a card with the challenge symbol, you choose one opponent and both get about 15 seconds to study the country list that country is on. Then you take turns listing country names, without looking at any maps or lists. Unless someone is a geography buff and already knows a bunch of the countries, this is just a memory game.
Continent Race isn’t my favorite geography game
Personally, I prefer games requiring skill or strategy. This game is luck-based (whoever happens to draw the cards they need first), but there’s not a lot of skill involved. Yes, it helps improve familiarity with where different countries are, but so does a puzzle.
At the end of the day, I don’t regret having this game. We’ll probably keep it for a bit. However, if I could only have a couple of geography games, I wouldn’t keep this one. The World Geography Card Game is more complete and includes other statistics (though the lack of statistics in this game helps it stay relevant). And I dislike that there’s nothing about cultures in this game. If you can find it used, though, it’s a great one to pick up!