Prime Climb is often lauded as an amazing game. It has such universally glowing reviews that I finally purchased it new from Amazon, as I was having no luck finding it used (though it does pop up occasionally).
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Prime Climb is supposed to be amazing multiplication practice, however, in my experience, multiplication can really only be used in the beginning of the game. The pathway is a spiral. You start at 0 and end at 101, in the center (though you can also go backward for division and subtraction practice).
Prime Climb helps with multiplication practice
In theory, Prime Climb is really cool. Each of the prime numbers is assigned a color:
- 2: orange
- 3: green
- 5: blue
- 7: purple
- 11 and every larger prime number: red
- (1 is gray and not useful for factoring)
Each of the non-prime numbers has a ring around it, and this ring is composed of the color(s) of its factors. So 81, which is 3x3x3x3, has four green sections. 77, which is 7×11, has a purple section and a red section, and on the red section is written “11.” Prime Climb comes with a multiplication table, and the numbers in it have similar colored rings around them.
How to play
All players begin on START, or 0. Every player has two pawns. There are two dice to roll. Two oversized d10s (10-sided dice) with the numbers 1-10 that have the same colored rings around them as is present in the rest of the game. Roll both dice. If you roll doubles (the same number on both dice), use that number four times. Otherwise, use each number once. If you roll an 8 and a 4, you use the 8 and 4 separately. You do not have a 12 to use, nor do you have 32, or even 48.
To move, add, subtract, multiply, or divide the number your pawn is on by the number on the die. So if your pawns are on 3 and 11, you can choose to multiply your 11 by 8 to get to 88. But you cannot then multiply 88 by anything; you could add the 4 to it, or you could multiply the 3 you’re on by the 4 you rolled to get to 12. You can use both dice on one pawn, or one die on each pawn.
Rule modifications
According to the instructions, if you finish your turn with your pawn on the same space as someone else’s pawn, you bump them back to start. It’s not optional. However, this move caused such meltdowns in our house that we disallowed this rule entirely. We simply said that you can’t end your turn on someone else’s pawn.
Finally, there are Keeper and Action cards. If you move your pawn to a prime number that’s bigger than 10 (it’ll be entirely red) and it finishes the turn there, you get to draw a card. Keeper cards are kept face-up in front of you, and you can use them on a future turn. Keeper cards might be numbers that you can use in addition to the numbers you rolled, or they might be cards you play on opponents. Action cards are used immediately, and might be good or bad for you or your opponents. After you use a card, discard it.
Prime Climb wasn’t the biggest winner for my family, but we’ll try again
I have to admit we haven’t played this game recently. I’m sad to say that I wasn’t very impressed. I really wanted to like it. I paid enough for it; I should like it. And while I love the cleverness of the colors, you really have to figure out the product first, before you can find it. After all, it’s a little hard to find that one magical color combination among 100 other circles.
Edit: Now that my kids are a bit older, we’ve really been liking what we call Prime Descend! We play it backwards; we all start on 101 and make our way to 0. My favorite part about this is that you can use division almost the whole game. It’s also a lot easier to use the color scheme as intended. If you’ve tried the original rules and been unimpressed, try one of their variations and see if you like it better!
Now that my kids are a bit older, we’ll try Prime Climb again. And maybe I’ll figure out a different way to use the board and dice. After all, the color scheme is pretty cool; kind of like how Dragon Times relates the characteristics of the dragons to the factoring of their numbers.