This year’s National Unplugging Day is being held on Sunday 25th June 2017 and they are asking parents around the UK and beyond to pledge to #GoGadgetFree and spend the day from morning till night without any technology. I think this will really help bring families together for some fun without glancing at their phones or tablets every five minutes! To celebrate going gadget free we have been trying out the Scotland Yard game from Ravensburger and I have to say we spent most of last Sunday playing this, laughing, having fun and enjoying each other’s company.
Notorious criminal Mr X is on the run in Central London. Can Scotland Yard’s finest detectives track him down, or will he escape forever?
One player takes on the role of Mr X, whilst other players take on the role of detectives and work as a team to try to find him. Mr X only reveals his location every 5 moves, but the detectives can get clues as to his location by looking at his travel log, which reveals his chosen method of transport. The detectives also move around the board using taxi, bus and underground tickets, and must try to surround Mr X, and then move to his hidden location to catch him and win. But the detectives don’t always win and Mr X can escape to any of the 199 locations shown on the detailed map of Central London!
The game consists of a large quality playing board depicting the streets of London. Between the 200 stops are taxi routes, bus routes and train lines. Mister X has unlimited use of any of these but each of the detectives has a limited amount of tickets so has to use their method of transport between destinations wisely as they try to locate Mister X
Mister X has a board on which he records his movements but all the other players can only see is his mode of transport before he pops up on the board at certain points. Everyone wanted to be Mister X so we took turns on each game. You get a special cap to wear to try and hide your eyes from the board so other players can’t guess by your eyes where you are looking.
The game was faster paced than I expected and actually a lot of fun. We all loved the game and played it over and over. Both children and adults found the game appealing although you do need to be the recommended 8yrs plus to really get to grips with strategies when moving in order not to get caught out. We did play a simpler version for our youngest little boy and he loved joining in on the action.
I’d really recommend this game for families as it offers something for everyone along with a bit of healthy competition between the detectives and Mister X. The detectives can discuss tactics between each other which gets the family talking and the time soon went buy and none of us had touched any technology throughout the play. Scotland Yard is a great game to play for National Unplugging Day with the aim to #GoGadgetFree. Give it a try, it’s lots of fun and great to get back to good old fashioned board game family times!
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.
