Toss Your Cookies - Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk

As mentioned in our review, playing Toss Your Cookies with children at the younger end of the spectrum proved to be a small challenge. The first few rounds were great and everyone was having fun, but at some point the dynamic shifted and the younger players started to complain that the milk "toss" wasn't fair. This only seemed to be an issue when it was just the milk to be tossed, not a number of cards. To counteract this we worked with our children to come up with...

An Alternative to Tossing the Milk:
  1. Choose a number of unused cookie tiles to equal the number of players minus 1
  2. Mix them together with the milk
  3. Deal them out to the players (except the one doing the "toss"
  4. Whoever ends up with the milk keeps it while the other players return the other cookie tiles to the box
  5. Play continues as normal

Toss Your Cookies - Review

Game Manufacturer: Gamewright
Ages: 8 and up
From Amazon.com
# Players: 3 to 8
Avg. Game Length: 15 minutes

In Toss Your Cookies, players compete to be the first to collect 5 identical cookies and the glass of milk before proclaiming "Snickerdoodle" to win.

To being, an equal number of cookies are mixed together with a glass of milk, wild cards and half-eaten cookies and then dealt to each player.

Each turn, players roll two dice to determine how many cookies to trade in which direction. The dice may instead direct the current holder of the milk to pass it on instead. Watch out for the mad scramble if the dice direct the players to toss some cookies to the middle of the table and grab the same number out again.

Pros:
  • Simple strategy
  • Fast gameplay
  • Fun, engaging play even for adults

Cons:
  • Perceived "fairness" of the toss

We received Toss Your Cookies from another family that had enjoyed it, but often ran into hard feelings during the game. On our first play through we quickly discovered the same thing.

The first few rounds went great, with lots of laughs from everyone. Once the dice directed us to "toss" the milk, however, arguments started if the milk tile bounced closer to one child than another, or if one had their hand closer to the table, or even if they had blinked at the wrong moment. With our kids at the lower end of the age spectrum for the game we decided to use this as a learning experience.

We discussed different ways of completing the toss that would be fair for everyone. You can find our ideas in the House Rules section.

Despite that minor bump we all still enjoy the game and have played several times on our family game nights.

Introduction

We are a family that loves games; board, card, computer or otherwise. We play them, discuss them and modify them to fit our gaming style or number of players. Here is where we will collect our opinions, house rules and variations for our own records and the enjoyment of others.

This is a work in progress so bear with us as we figure out our design and organizational elements.