My 3 year old can play it with no problem. He got the hang of it quickly. One minor warning, and it has nothing to do with this game in particular but with all games that focus on "winning", you have to watch to see how losing a race begins to affect your child. My 3 year old went through a short phase where he got very mad or pouted after not winning. He's a very very competitive child. So I don't know if that was just him or what. Anyway, after some time away from the game, and we taught him simply to say, "Oh man." when he lost, that seemed to do the trick and he just loves playing it. The good thing is that you collect stars throughout the game and you get them whether you win or not. The stars allow you to buy different cars and colors. My boys both love that feature.