Tag: Board Game

Spot the Intro

Birthday Gifts, Christmas, Family Life, Games, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, secret santa, Stocking Fillers

Disclaimer: We received this product free of charge for the purpose of this review and all thoughts and opinions are our own.

Christmas is a time when the whole family gets together and sitting down to play a board game after lunch is now a favourite family tradition. Music games are great to play when you have a mix of ages and Spot the Intro from Cheatwell Games is bound to get everyone reminiscing about the music of their youth and all those long forgotten top ten hits that we all know and love.

The game features music from the last six decades with the aim being to guess songs from a 10 second intro and be the first to reach the finish. There are 480 double sided cards in the box giving you 960 tracks to play and we found it quite addictive so it will certainly keep everyone occupied over the Christmas period. Unlike older music quiz games that used a CD or DVD to play the music, this game has QR codes on the cards to scan with your phone, taking you to a Spot the Intro page where you can play the songs via Amazon, Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

After listening to the intro, the team have to name the song correctly to get one point with an additional point given for naming the artist. With any correct answer there is a bonus question with another point available for a correct answer. Once the questions have been answered the team then moves their counter by the number of correct answers.

The game is great fun although it’s a bit fiddly scanning the codes so that’s definitely a job for the teenagers rather than Granny!  

Spot The Intro is a great game for music lovers and works really well as a team game, especially with mixed ages. It’s a great game to play with family and friends and with Christmas round the corner, it would make a great gift that also doubles up as the afternoon or evening’s entertainment.

RRP £25.83 available from Amazon

5 Second Rule Uncensored Round 2

Birthday Gifts, Games, Gifts for Her, Valentine's Day Gifts, Women

Disclaimer: We received this product free of charge for the purpose of this review but all thoughts and opinions are our own.

Galentine’s Day is a new concept and was started back in 2010 on the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation. Celebrated on 13th February it is a day to celebrate important female friendships and is the perfect excuse to get your girlfriends together for the evening.

If you are planning a get together at home this Galentine’s Day then the 5 Second Rule Uncensored Round 2 from Playmonster Games is bound to give you a good giggle. The game is a spin-off of the popular family game but in this version the cards contain some questions with an adult content and comes with a recommended age of 17+

Inside the box are:

  • 150 doubled-sided question cards
  • Twisted timer – which makes a silly noise whenever it’s flipped. 
  • Rules

The game is really easy to set up, you simply choose a question card from the box, turn the timer and you’re ready to play. You have 5 seconds to name 3 things on the card – which sounds easier than it actually is so you do have to think quickly. With questions like “Name 3 things you nibble”, “Name 3 things you can do with whipped cream” and “Point to 3 places sand gets stuck after a trip to the beach” it’s not a game for people who are easily embarrassed or prudish. There are some quite risqué questions in the box too so it’s probably best to play it with people you know very well and not your Mum!

To score a point you need to name 3 items and you then keep the card, making keeping track of the points nice and easy. If the player can’t name 3 items, play passes onto the next player however, they can’t use any of the answers that have already been used, making it quite tricky.  

If no one can get three answers and all the players have had a turn, the original person is awarded the point by default. The player to the right of the starting player then picks a card and it starts again until the agreed upon number of rounds has finished.

We had a great night playing 5 Second Rule Uncensored, it is a great adult party game that quickly gets everyone laughing.

RRP £14.99 from the Playmonster website

Triggle Family Board Game

Birthday Gifts, Children, Family Life, Games, Gifts for children, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Gifts for teachers, Home & Garden, Learning, Toys

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Families are always looking for more wholesome ways to connect and have fun, so Tomy’s board game Triggle is a gem for the winter months. Based on 2-4 players (but you could play in teams) it is aimed at 8 years and upwards and has a remarkably simple objective; to create triangles.

The starting board consists of pegs arranged in a geometric pattern. Each player chooses one of the colours of pegs (there are 21 pegs for each player) and the elastic bands are divided out between everyone playing. Taking it in turns, each player add one rubber band to the board, suspending it between any two posts in any direction. The only ‘rules’ are that the line created by the band must be straight, and it must stretch across 4 post only and touching at least one other rubber band. 

Once a player creates a triangle with their rubber band, they can claim it as their own by placing their coloured peg inside it. A triangle consists of only one single space.

The game ends whenever there are no spaces left on the board to claim, or one of the players uses up all their pegs.  An alternative to the full game is for each player to have a set amount of rubber bands (for instance, 10 or 20) and the players play until there are no more bands left. Whoever has the most pegs placed on the board is the winner.

This is a remarkably easy game to follow and learn the rules for, and can keep the whole family entertained. We found that playing with just two, and especially two adults or older children was exceptionally easy and allowed for conversation throughout. There was no need to remember where you were in the game, so it was easy to talk, or walk away and come back after dinner if you needed to. It also doesn’t last for hours and hours where you feel compelled to complete the game. It also didn’t require point scoring or writing anything down as you can just count up the number of pegs visible, and there’s no need for remembering characters or complicated rules!

If you are in a group who don’t speak English or have limited vocabulary, this is a great mind teaser puzzle, and if you lose the rubber bands, they can easily be replaced. Instead of using the pegs, you can use any other type of counter from another game, so there’s longevity too.  I found that after a while, some of the younger children (under 12 years old or so) were able to make up new games of their own, or liked making patterns in the board after the game had finished, so there was endless entertainment to be had over the school holidays.

Triggle isn’t really a game you grow out of and can be picked up by anyone. It’s definitely a “thumbs up” from us as a family game.

Available from £19.50 at Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Brain-Preschool-Educational-Suitable/dp/B08SRF4FKJ/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2T4AYCESTM577&keywords=triggle+board+game&qid=1672763459&sprefix=triggle+board+game%2Caps%2C63&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

Tension

Birthday Gifts, Children, Christmas, Family Life, Games, Learning, Toys

Disclaimer: We received this game free of charge for the purpose of this review but all words and opinions are our own.

This week is International Games Week, so why not join in the fun this weekend and play a board game with your family?

We love board games and this week we have been playing Tension – the Top Ten Naming Game from Cheatwell games. It is recommended for ages 8+ and is played in teams.  

There is nothing worse than opening a game and spending 15 minutes or more setting it up – especially on Christmas day, so I was very impressed with Tension as it can be played pretty much straight away – the only setting up involved was a quick read of the rules and then we were ready to go. It took longer choosing the teams than it did to understand the rules – always the sign of a good game!

Once you have decided your teams then you choose a player to ask the questions (or you can keep swapping – especially if you are playing at Christmas with lots of children) they pick a card and ask the other team to name 10 things that are …….. Italian cities, actors who have played Doctor Who, popular Disney characters etc. The timer is turned and everyone in the team shouts out the answers. It sounds easy but the twist is you need to come up with the ten answers that are on the card to gain points. There is a handy scorer which makes it easy to keep track of correct answers.

There are orange and purple cards and the card you select is determined by the coloured circle on the board. The orange cards tend to be easier so when we have been playing with younger children we tend just to choose these so that they can come up with answers, but if you have older children or are playing it with adults you can play based on where your counter lands.

Once the minute is up the correct answers are counted and the team move their counter forward this number of places. The first team to reach the finish space wins the game.

With Christmas fast approaching it is the perfect game to play as everyone can join in, we’ll be playing it with 3 generations of our family and with 400 topics it will be a great way to keep the children off electronics over the Christmas period!

RRP £12 from Tesco

Spot The Intro Board Game

Birthday Gifts, Children, Christmas, Family Life, Games, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Gifts for teachers

The Original Music Recognition Game

The board game Spot The intro has been around for a while but this updated version uses the internet for the songs rather than a CD.

The aim of the game is to recognise the song with just the intro, but you are against the clock to name it in time and gain points. The team who make it ‘Top of the Hit Parade’ wins.

This new version, which is for ages 14 and over, has QR codes for each category which takes you to a Spot The Intro page on your phone where you see a specific song.  Using the cut and paste function, you then move into which ever music app or streaming app you use and find the song to play it.  The page supports all the major music players online such as Amazon, Apple, Spotify and even YouTube.

There are 1,200 tunes within the game and that includes TV theme tunes, film scores and of course, songs from the past 60 years. Each track has a trivial question to answer too.

The concept of the game is great – it’s every music lover’s dream game and very entertaining at Christmas. However, it does get a bit fiddly with having to scan each QR code, then go and copy and paste the song. If you don’t have streaming apps and are just using a YouTube account, it can take even longer and of course, if you don’t have a smart phone you can’t use this version at all! I think I preferred the CD version for a few years back, although I’m not sure many of us have CD players around anymore!

The game is for more than 2 teams to play and over the age of 14. The songs go back to the 1960s though so you might want to mix up the teams a bit so that there’s more historical coverage.  The game is great for after dinner as it’s not too long, depending on how many players you have.

As far as novelty value, it’s great fun playing a board game that isn’t just two dimensional and can involve the whole family!

Spot The Intro available at Amazon for £13.74:

Nostalgia Board Game

Birthday Gifts, camping, Children, Christmas, Family Life, Games

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

There are some lovely board games out this Christmas which have been sent to us to test in the run-up to the festive season. If the weather continues to be wet and cold, these board games are likely to be very well used!

Nostalgia – The game that recalls the past is a Start/Finish game aimed at ages 16+. The nature of the games means it’s fantastic for all the family especially grandparents who might not be up for playing something new on Boxing Day. This is the perfect game for them though as the questions are all based on the decades from the 1960s to the 1990s. A roll of the die and each player lands on either a decade or a topic (film, music, TV, fashion or fads & fashions) and answers one of those questions. The first person to reach the Finish square wins the game. There’s only 33 squares to navigate, and considering all that happened in the 20th Century that’s a lot to pack in! It does mean that the game can last less than an hour if you only have a couple of players. Up to six players means it could go on for longer than an hour.

The questions aren’t too tricky either so teenagers might be able to guess the answers although they are not multiple choice.  Questions about fashion might be easier for the younger generation to guess, but with questions about TV and film, we found that the questions generated discussion about the answers and lots of questions from younger people.  We did find that the TV and music questions in particular were very UK-focused (it is a British board game after all) so those who grew up overseas might not be able to recall many of those answers. 

It was great fun though, and I especially like that it incorporates all the ages and isn’t complicated at all. It’s easy to play with the family and doesn’t take too long to complete and there are plenty of question cards for you to be able to keep playing over and over!

Currently on offer for £6.50 at: https://www.therange.co.uk/toys/cards-puzzles-and-board-games/family-games/cheatwell-nostalgia-game/?position=2&s=10862#10862

Ticket To Ride Board Game

Birthday Gifts, Children, Christmas, Games, Halloween

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

The very first Ticket to Ride game was published back in 2004 and is one of my family’s favourite games. The original game featured a map of the United States but there are now lots of different versions including the new Ticket To Ride Ghost Train which arrived this October half term and was a very welcome addition to our Halloween themed week! The spooky illustrations on the box immediately caught the eye of my 7 year old nephew and he couldn’t wait to play it!

This game is part of the First Journey Series which is a junior version of the Ticket To Ride Games. It is suitable for ages 6+ and is very easy to learn. We found a game usually takes about 20 -30 minutes so is perfect for younger children who don’t always have a long attention span!

Inside the box are

1 game board (map of a chilling town)
80 haunted carriages
72 Parade Float Cards
33 Tickets
4 “Trick or Treat” Bonus tickets
Set of rules

The aim of the game is to collect Parade Float cards to claim routes on the map, by visiting different locations in the town. The places all have ghostly names with locations like the Graveyard, Lonely Barn and Pumpkin Patch. In true Halloween style there’s even a “trick or treat” bonus in the game – you’ll win it if you manage to create a route from the Dark Forest to the Seashore region!!

Ticket To Ride Ghost Train from Asmodee is a fun family game that has a spooky twist and perfect for your little witches, werewolves and ghouls this Halloween.

RRP £29.99 available from all good retailers

Top It Board Game Review

Birthday Gifts, Children, Christmas, Family Life, Games, Learning

Disclaimer – we received this game for the purpose of the review but all thoughts and opinions are our own.


Does anyone else look forward to winter and cosy nights in playing board games with friends and family? My family certainly does, and it certainly wouldn’t be Christmas if Father Christmas didn’t leave a new board game alongside his empty beer glass and cake crumbs!

This year we will be playing Top It from Cheatwell Games, it is the perfect game to play at a family get together and can be played by 2+ players. It does say it is suitable for ages 10+ but we played it with our 7-year-old nephew and he was able to come up with plenty of answers but it does depend on the child – you can always select a different question to give them a little help.

The game is packaged in a carboard box and inside the box are
• 75 double sided Top It Topics Cards
• 60 Top It Cones
• 18 Letter Discs
• Sand timer
• Score Pad
• Pencil

It’s easy to play – each player is given 10 cones and then 9 letter discs are placed on a table and finally a topic card is selected.

The timer is turned and then the fun begins! Players shout out an answer that not only fits the topic but also starts with one of the 9 letters on show, they then place their cone on that letter. However, this is where the fun starts – if another player comes up with something starting with the same letter after you, they can then Top-It with their own cone.

It quickly becomes very competitive as the cones stack up, but only the last cone counts, winning all the points! The topics are quite wide and it was quite astounding hearing the items my family came up with to suit the topics. When “Things found in a garden!” came up my son shouted out “treasure chest” I’ve been searching our garden all week but I haven’t found it yet!!!!

This is a great game and a fun way to bring the all the family together this Christmas

RRP £26.99 available from Amazon

30 Seconds Board Game

Birthday Gifts, Children, Christmas, Family Life, Games, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Home & Garden, Learning, REUSABLE

Disclaimer – We received this item for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

With Christmas looming, it’s time to get our thinking cap on and make a dent in the Christmas present shop. 

As a family we love playing board games so when 30 Seconds by SmartGames UK arrived we couldn’t wait to play! 

In this fast-paced general knowledge game, players have just 30 seconds to describe five names on their chosen card, for teammates to guess. 

From landmarks to TV shows, celebrities to politicians, players will be kept on their toes whizzing through the list as fast as they can – without saying the actual words or using any ‘sounds like’ or rhyming tactics.

A minimum of 4 players are required to play making the perfect gift for friends and family! 

30 Seconds will give your family and friends hours of enjoyment and laughter this Christmas! 

Contents include a game board, dice, timer, 4 playing tokens, and 240 cards (2,400 names).

Pandemic! The Board Game.

Birthday Gifts, Family Life, Father's Day, Games, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Home & Garden

Disclaimer – We received this item for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Race against time to rid the world of deadly diseases in this thrilling cooperative game! Put your head together with your friends to best use your characters’ abilities as you travel the world and seek cures in this all-time classic game of tense decisions.

In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases.

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station.

The Pandemic game line includes multiple expansions and stand-alone titles. You and your team are the only things standing in the way of deadly diseases that threaten the world. The fate of humanity is in your hands.

Only through teamwork and strategy will you have a chance to find a cure.

  • Contents: Game Board, 7 Role Cards, 7 Pawns, 59 Player Cards (48 City Cards, 6 Epidemic Cards, 5 Event Cards), 48 Infection Cards, 96 Disease Cubes, 6 Markers, 6 Research Stations, Reference Cards and Rulebook.
  • 2 or more players.
  • For ages 10 years and over.
  • Boxed dimensions: H30.8, W22.4, D4.6cm.
  • 1 year manufacturer’s guarantee.
  • EAN 681706711003.
  • Not suitable for children under 3 years old.
  • Only for domestic use.
  • To be used under the direct supervision of an adult.