When you have little kids who are just getting into gaming, you have a small subsection of game machines that you will see a lot of. Dexterity, roll and move, and memory are high on the list. And it’s that last item that we are talking about today.

Designed by the good Dr. Reiner Knizia, Treasure of the Dragons was first published way back in 2003 as Schatz der Drachen. Today, it’s been given a fresh coat of paint and some new life from family game publisher Foxmind Games. Does it still hold up over 2 decades later? Let’s find out.

Gameplay Overview:

The goal in Treasure of the Dragon is to collect as many of the 49 tiles as possible. To start the game, they are shuffled and laid out on a 7×7 grid. On a player’s turn, they can reveal as many tiles as they want until they decide to stop or are forced to stop.

If they reveal a treasure tile, they can continue flipping tiles until they have revealed enough matching treasure tiles to make a set, then collect them whenever they want to stop.

The coins on the items tell you how many of each you need to collect them.

However, if the player reveals a spider, their turn ends immediately and they lose all previously revealed tiles, which are flipped back over.

Finally, if they reveal a dragon, they also lose all previously revealed tiles and end their turn…UNLESS the dragon was the first tile revealed. In which case, they can go dragon hunting. As long as they continue to turn over dragons, they can keep going until they decide to stop (collecting the dragon tiles) or reveal a treasure/spider, in which case their turn ends, and they lose all revealed tiles.

Once all the tiles have been collected (except the spiders), the game ends. The player with the most dragon collects the spider tiles, and the player with the most tiles wins.

Flip tiles, push your luck, try and score some points.

Game Experience:

While I’m exceeding burned out on playing memory games with my kids (as that was a major part of their collection in the early years), Treasure of the Dragon was quite enjoyable. I’m not sure why it made the cut above many of the other memory games we’ve played, perhaps it was its interesting push your luck elements.

Instead of claiming treasure, you can go dragon hunting.

I also liked that while spiders (only 3 of them) are always bad, dragons, on the other hand, can be quite lucrative to go after. As there are about a dozen dragons to find, it can be nice if you turn over a dragon first on your turn to decide to pivot and find the other ones you remember. Not only does that help you earn points (and get you closer to the spider bonus), but it frees up the grid of dragons, making it easier to find the other treasures.

From my kids’ point of view, they both enjoyed this one. My son particularly enjoyed finding the batches of treasure—items like the treasure chest you needed to find four of to collect—and seemed to have the right kind of memory to keep track of where everything is at. But the game, obviously, gets easier as the grid shrinks so this one does a great job of not overstaying its welcome as well.

Final Thoughts:

Even after all this time, Treasure of the Dragons still holds up. The game was a hit with my kids, and we even had fun playing it with them. While it doesn’t have the crossover appeal that some family games do, it’s also one you won’t mind playing with your kids. And on top of that, there is no reading required, so you can easily give them the game to play on their own when you want to get them out of your hair for a few minutes.