Candy Land
| A game of Candyland in Progress | |
| Players | 2 to 4 |
|---|---|
| Setup time | < 3 minutes |
| Playing time | < 15-20 minutes |
| Chance | Very high |
| Age range | 3 to 6 |
| Skills | Color recognition |
Candy Land is a simple racing board game. It has become a cultural icon in the U.S., where it is often the first board game played by children because it requires no ability to read or count.
Game play
The board consists of a winding, linear track made of 134 spaces, most of which are one of the rainbow colors (aside from indigo). The remaining few spaces are named locations such as Candy Cane Forest and Gum Drop Mountain, or characters like Queen Frostine and Lord Licorice.
Players take turns removing the top card from a randomized stack, most of which show one of six colors, and then moving their marker ahead to the next space of that color. Some cards have two marks of a color, in which case the player moves his or her marker ahead to the second-next space of that color. The deck also contains one card for each named location, and drawing such a card moves a player directly to that location's space on the board. This move can be either forward or backward in the classic game, backward moves are ignored in the current game. Finally, there are three colored squares marked with a dot. A player that lands on such a square is stuck (all cards are ignored) until a card is drawn of the same color as the square.
The race is straightforward, woven around a simple story line about finding the lost king of Candyland. The classic game takes longer to complete than one would expect, because the location cards can send players backwards.
History of Candy Land
The game was designed in the 1940s by Eleanor Abbott, while she was recovering from polio in San Diego, California.
The game was bought by Milton Bradley Company (now owned by Hasbro) and first published in 1949. Hasbro produces several versions of the game and treats it as a brand. For example, they market Candy Land puzzles, a travel version, a PC game, and a handheld electronic version.
A December, 2005 article in Forbes magazine analyzed the most popular American toys by decade, with help from the Toy Industry Association. Candy Land led the list for the 1940-1949 decade.
Versions of Candy Land
At least three different versions of the Candy Land board game were made. A picture from the Elliott Avedon Museum, copyright 1962, shows a track layout different from the more modern versions. The next revision, from the 1980s and 1990s, has the modern track layout, and ends with a purple square. The rules specify that any card that would cause you to advance past the purple square wins the game, but many people play you must land exactly on it. In the most modern version, there is a rainbow-striped square at the end to make the rule visually explicit. The rules for the modern game also specify that a character card resulting in a backward move can be ignored, resulting in a much shorter game if desired. Finally, some of the characters are renamed in the modern version - Queen Frostine is Princess Frostine, for example.
Additionally, a VCR board game version of the game was made in 1986, although distribution of the game appears to have been limited. An animated 2005 feature Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure was produced and later spawned a DVD game version of Candy Land.
| SKU # | Title |
|---|---|
| Candy Land (1949 edition) | |
| Candy Land (1950s edition) | |
| Candy Land (1962 edition) | |
| Candy Land (1967 edition) | |
| Candy Land (1985 edition) | |
| Candy Land: VCR Board Game (1986) | |
| MB1001 | Candy Land: 50th Anniversary Collector’s Tin (1999) |
| 04700 | Candy Land (2002 edition) |
| 41051 | Candy Land: Winnie-the-Pooh Edition |
| 41605 | Candy Land: Collector’s Series Game Tin |
| 42588 | Candy Land: Dora the Explorer |
| 42743 | Candy Land: Deluxe (only at Toys R Us) |
| 42328 | Candy Land: DVD Game |
| 53678 | Candy Land: Dora the Explorer with Memory Game Tin |
| 114866 | Candy Land: Fun on the Run (portable) |
Mathematics of Candy Land
Mathematically, Candyland is very nearly a Markov chain, and would be exactly such a chain if the deck were re-shuffled after each card is drawn. There have been several analyses of game play (see references below)
Candy Land characters
- Mr.Mint
- Gramma Nutt
- King Kandy
- Jolly
- Plumpy (taken out of the most recent version of the game)
- Mama Ginger Tree (replaces Plumpy)
- Princess Lolly (renamed 'Lolly' after 2002 edition)
- Queen Frostine (renamed 'Princess Frostine' after 2002 edition)
- Lord Licorice
- Gloppy the Molasses Monster
Candyland in Popular Culture
- An episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 showed a few characters played Candyland with Brain Guy perpetually trapped in Molasses Swamp. His time there was apparently extensive as he referred to it as his "own personal hell."
- In That '70s Show, main character Eric Forman kept a secret stash of money (which, ironically, all of his friends and family members knew about) in a Candyland box.
- The Candy section of Toys R Us in NYC's Times Square maintained a CandyLand theme, until losing their license for the characters in 2006. The theme included a colored pathway that mimicked the board for the game, several CandyLand characters, and candy-themed shelving and ceiling decorations.
- In an episode of The Andy Milonakis Show, Andy plays candy land with Fat Joe. Andy wins and Fat Joe controls his temper, unlike playing Battleship & Operation, where he got angry and destroyed the boards.
- During a dry spell, the video game review show X-Play did a more or less earnest review of Candyland as if it were a videogame. For a board game meant for young children, it scored rather well.
Internet name
Candyland was involved in one of the first disputes over internet domain names. An adult web content provider registered candyland.com, and Hasbro objected. Hasbro was able to obtain an injunction against the use, and now owns the site.
External links
- Hasbro sites:
- Hasbro's Candy Land page
- Another Hasbro page devoted to CandyLand. Includes the history and pictures of older versions.
- Official rules of classic version, in PDF format from the Hasbro site.
- Mathematical Analysis of 1-4 player game. Includes a picture of the (classic) board.
- Deeper Mathematical Analysis of 1 player game. Finds expected length of a 1 person game accurate to several hundred(!) digits.
- Monte Carlo analysis of Candyland, Cootie, and Chutes and Ladders. Results for Candyland differ slightly from the analyses above.
- Information about Candyland from the Elliott Avedon Museum & Archive of Games.
- Injunction against using candyland.com for an adult web site