5 Second Rule Spintensity Family Game – Review & Giveaway

Posted on November 12, 2020 by Fiona Martin

5 Second Rule Spintensity is the all-new, spinfully intense electronic version of the original 5 Second Rule game – one of my kids favourites. So I knew that this new version of the game by Interplay would be a hit with them and I certainly wasn’t wrong. With a 5-second electronic timer to keep the game’s momentum going, this really keeps everyone on their toes, shouting crazy, funny answers that everyone finds hilarious. With so much fun to be had this is perfect with friends, family or simply just the two of you.

They really do cover a wide choice of topics with something for everyone. Most subjects will suit all players but there are a few topics that if you don’t know, then you really don’t (more so when they ask you to name songs from an artist or certain groups of celebrities). We found it easier to allow players to pass on cards like this and simply move on. This led to swifter game play and more fun for everyone.

The bonus to the Spintensity version of 5 second rule is the Electronic timer which is central to this game and keeps the momentum going. It limits how long you have to answer questions and determines your next move.

Each turn in the game requires you to name 3 things in 5 seconds then press the timer to see what the spinner wants you to do next: name 3 more, 2 more, draw a new card or move on to the next player… or will the timer turn Red and sound you out!

If you successfully answer your question you keep the card. Then at the end of each round you move around the board according to the number of cards you have. The winner is the first to reach the finish point.

Spintensity Fun for all the Family

We found this game really simple to play and ultimately great fun. The kids just love the freedom of answers they can give to the questions. We allow most but do disallow any that really don’t fit the bill.

I just love the constant laughs we have and upbeat atmosphere that this game creates for our family. Also it’s not too long so can be played anytime, we’ve certainly squeezed quite a few rounds of this in over the last couple of weeks!

If you’d like to see the game in action then check out some clips of us playing below:

5 Second Rule Spintensity is available from most good toy retailers including Argos, Smyths Toys and John Lewis, this is certainly a great game to be had this Christmas and beyond.

For your chance to win a copy of 5 Second Rule Spintensity just fill in the gleam form below:

5 Second Rule Spintensity game

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews. Although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

Having an Easter Egg hunt with Ultra Dash game from Interplay

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Fiona Martin

Looking for a fun idea for your kids Easter Egg hunt this year? Then how about using the family fun game Ultra Dash from Interplay to add to the fun. You can add chocolate treats to the targets for children to collect as they dash about following the flashing colours adding to their fun. Also a great game during this stay at home isolation spell that we are having

The Ultra Dash game comes with five multicoloured targets that are bright and easy to see. This game is ideal for either indoors or outside in the garden if the weather is pleasant enough. You simply place them on a flat surface either on the ground or on an easily reachable surface.

The Tagger is an ergonomic shaped stick that you hold and requires 3 AA batteries. It then acts as your main tool in the game as from here you can control the number of players, timed countdowns and which game mode you wish to play.

It’s also is your main game controller that you hold during play and the top flashes various colours, each matching the colours of the targets and determines where you need to place the tagger. It also records your score on how accurate you are in placing the tagger into the correct target.

There are three modes of game play:

Beat the Clock – A race to hit all five targets as fast as you can which you can either play alone or compete against others by taking turns and checking your scores.
Target Tally – Choose the length of your game whether it be 30 seconds or a minute and see how many targets you can hit in that time
Relay Race – split into teams and take turns of hitting five targets each before passing to the next player in your team.

As a fun idea for Easter we put chocolate bunnies into each target for the children to collect as they played – off course this was a hit and encouraged them to keep playing for longer! I also found that by playing in the garden, the children were clearly keeping active by running between the targets and being competitive as they are, beat me in the the time challenges.

You can see the game in action in this short video clip we’ve made:

If you are looking for a fun game to keep the kids active then this would be great especially in the current climate. It could be a long Summer if school remains closed until September to Ultra Dash is the idea way to have fun and keep fit!

You can also check out Interplay on their social channels to see Ultra Dash and other great play ideas that they have. They are on Instagram, Youtube and Twitter.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

Takeout The Card Game – Review

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Fiona Martin

Takeout: The Card Game is a social card game suitable for 2-4 players and with a suggested age of 10 years plus although my 9yr old loves playing it. From Small Monsters Games, it is fast paced card game as you try to beat the other players to get an entire Chinese meal for yourself.

The scene is set for the game:

In Takeout, players are a group of young backpackers in a tiny noodle shop down an alley in China. Although none of you speak Chinese, you’re determined to sample authentic Chinese cuisine. The object of the game is to get one dish of each flavor (sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter) and a cold drink into your meal, before any of your friends do.

In the Takeout card box are a variety of cards, food cards and action cards which start together in a kitchen pile but are discarded into either a food pile that other players can select the top one from or a general discard pile.

There are also cards which show the complete range of flavours you need to collect in our meal and each player can have one of these cards in front of them to remind them of what they need to collect.

It’s then time for the game play to start. The instructions are fairly simple although it’s good to have a first round of play where you are not competitive and just getting to grips with rules. After that everyone was at battle to get their meal prepared first!

The Takeout game starts by dealing out 5 cards per player, and then each player takes a turn that consists of drawing a card, playing a card and discarding a card. If you get a food card you have the option of keeping it, playing it of discarding and this is were you get tactical. Sometimes it’s worth playing a duplicate food card to conceal the fact you have another one to complete your meal. But also you have to remember the action cards come into play and you get the option of helping yourself to one of your friends dishes, sending one of the other players dishes to the bottom of the kitchen pile, swap a meal with a friend or pick a random meal you fancy from one of your friends!

We’ve really enjoyed playing this game as a family with my 9 and 11 year old children. It is fun, they are always eager to be the first to complete their meal first and they love the action cards when they can either steal off of others or put a part of someone’s meal back in the kitchen. It’s a game of both chance with getting the meals you need and tactical playing to complete the entire meal. With Takeout being a card game it means it’s great for carrying around with you for play anywhere, great for travelling, holidays etc as well as simply playing at home. A fun game that we’d recommend!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

World Series STARE OFF Official Game – Review

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Fiona Martin

World Series STARE OFF Official Game takes staring competitions to the next level with two headbands and poles for an official game along with a blocking screen, red card, distraction cards and a rule sheet. It’s great fun for all the family and for all ages – anyone can join in and it’s great that young can fairly compete against those older than them.

The essential parts of a the game include a three piece pole and two head pieces that attach to each end. The pole can be shortened by removing a section of the pole and you do this as you move through the rounds.

You randomly draw names to choose the first two players to have a match and pick someone to be the referee who will do a countdown to start and also shout ‘Blinker’ and show the red card when a player has blinked. This ends each round and players move onto the next one to see who wins the match (first player to win two rounds).

There’s also a blocking screen which you hang from the centre of the pole before each game so that the participants can prepare. The referee removes this on the countdown to start.

An added fun part to the Stare Off game are the distraction cards. Each player picks one at the start of the match and can use it in any round of their choice to try and distract their opponent. These are a really fun and interactive part of the game. My children thought they were hilarious and certainly gave us all the giggles.

You have to do what’s on the card and it can be anything from ‘Meow like a cat wanting food’, ‘Smile a crazy smile’ or ‘Recite your favourite nursery rhyme’.

There are a few rules to follow in the instructions which help you set out guidelines for the Stare Off game, although we did pick and choose these a little as we played, the kids decided that they wanted to use a distraction card in every round as added to the fun. But with a game like this you can be flexible and make it suit your situation.

Overall we think Stare Off is a fun game that would be ideal for family gatherings or parties. We can’t wait to play this at Christmas when family come over and my kids are already eager to challenge their cousins to a few staring contests when they visit. It’s a simple but fun and certainly has the entertainment factor when a group of people are around. I imagine it would make a good drinking game too if you wanted to add a bit of fun to a social night with adult friends.

Will you be adding Stare Off to Santa’s sack this year?

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

Ravensburger Break Free Game – Review

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Fiona Martin

Break Free from Ravensburger is a fast paced interactive game best suited to ages 6+. It involves chaining yourself up in a handcuff which is attached via a chain to other players and then being the first to unpick the lock and Break Free.

The Break Free game pieces consists of 4 special padlocks with chains, 12 unique locking puzzles that you insert in the to base of the handcuff – 4 of each level, 4 lockpicks and 12 tokens. To play the game all players (can be played by 1 to 4 at a time) put one of the puzzle pieces (green for easy, yellow for a bit harder and red for tricky) into their padlock then attach the padlock to their wrist. You clip all the ends of the chains together and are then ready to begin.

The idea is in each round, the first player to unpick their lock, takes the highest numbered token, the next player takes the next highest token and so forth. So the first round you all start with green which is the easiest and work upwards.

What I really liked about this game is that all four of us could join in, mummy, daddy, 10yr old and 8yr old. We were really were all at equals trying to unpick the locks and although sometimes you though you got the knack, in the next round you would struggle again.

It certainly got competitive with everyone eager to unlock their padlocks and be the first!

Another aspect that I liked about this Ravensburger Break Free game is that within each level, all the lock puzzles have different sequences within them, so if someone works out a quick way to turn their pick to make their way through the lock, then if you play the game again and mix the pieces up, they are likely to have a different route to follow to unpick the lock which keeps everyone on their toes.

Even though the 8yr old got a little frustrated on the harder levels at times, you can see he is thrilled here when he beat his older sister. The kids also loved it when daddy got stuck sometimes just going round in circles and not actually unlocking his handcuff so they had to help unpick his lock at the end – of course mummy succeeded in coming in the top two places in most rounds!

Break Free by Ravensburger is a fun family game that all ages can join in or the kids can just play alone. My boy even enjoyed having a go on his own although I think he was trying to hone his unpicking technique for future rounds. We like this with it’s fast paced competitiveness and the excitement it brings – a good one to add to Santa’s list I think!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

Ravensburger Buggaloop Board Game with Hexbug

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Fiona Martin

Ravensburger Buggaloop board game is a fast paced game featuring a Hexbug nano that is on a mission to push your bugs off their path across the board. Aimed at ages 6+ and with 2-4 players I knew this would be something they would enjoy after the success we had with the sister game Bugs in the Kitchen.

The contents of the box are the 3D board which stays inside the box for sturdiness, 2 plastic loops which require minimal assembly to stand them up at the start of each game, 12 bug tokens, a dice and of course the Hexbug. My little boy couldn’t wait to get the Hexbug out and get him moving whilst my daughter carefully set the game up ready to play.

The idea of the game is to get your bugs across the board from one corner to the other. With each roll of the die which has numbers 1 to 4 around it (1 and 2 appear on two faces) you can move a bug that number of spaces, if they land on a raised space then they are safe from the Hexbug. During play the Hexbug is continually moving and goes from one loop to the other but as soon as he gets on to the centre of the board play stops, during which time you have to hope one of your bugs don’t get knocked off of their space because if they do, they go back to the start!

As you can imagine the game can get quite exciting with moments of moving bugs, then moments of the Hexbug coming along and everyone gasping and cheering as the Hexbug either knocks their bugs off or misses them. The game ends when one player has got all of the bugs to the other side of the board and is declared the winner!

My children loved playing this, particularly my little boy who is 7yrs old. I think it’s the Hexbug that really brings this game alive and keeps the action going. Although you can have a little strategy in which path you take across the board it really is the Hexbugs decision as to which bugs it knocks off so this really is a game of luck but with an edge of unknown and excitement. Why not check it out for some family fun?

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product along with payment in order to write an honest review.

LinkIt – the fun family fast paced Card Game

Posted on October 29, 2017 by Fiona Martin

LinkIt is one in a series of card games aimed at ages 6+ and for between 2 and 8 players. The fast paced games consists of a series of cards covered in pictures and you have to find a link between two of the pictures. The unique game has been designed to help children sharpen visual perception and language skills in a fun and competitive atmosphere.

The cards in LinkIt are circular making them a bit different but user friendly and I really like the storage tin that they come in. This is brilliant and makes it great for storage and an ideal travel game. With two children aged 9 and 7 I couldn’t wait to have a play and see how they found it.

There are two sets of cards, orange and blue backed which need separating, the orange go in the centre of the table and the blue are dealt out between the players. All the cards have colour images on and the idea is to find a matching image between your top card and the top card in the central deck. As easy as it sounds, it can be tricky to find one as the images vary in size across the cards and it takes a bit of quick thinking to find a pair.

The sort of pairs you need to find are things like a baby and bottle, football and goal, camel and desert, rabbit and carrot, mouse and cheese etc. The first couple of rounds took a little getting used to the pairs but we soon all got the hang of it and everyone was eager to find a match with their card. We found it fast paced, competitive but fun and a game the children wanted to play again and again. Although they find it fun it really does help sharpen their perception and learn to spot things quickly and I found my 7yr was as able as the adults in this game with his eagerness to win. Over the last few weeks we have played this multiple times and being quite a quick game, you can fit in a round anytime.

The LinkIt game is great fun, in particular my 7yr old thought it was the brilliant and is now one of his favourite games. I love it because it’s quick, light hearted fun for all the family and being compact and in a tin makes it a top travel game – we’ll definitely be taking this on our 4 hour train trip next week!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

Play Fun Speedy Doc Game

Posted on September 30, 2017 by Fiona Martin

Play Fun Speedy Doc is a family friendly game aimed at ages 8+ with quick paced rounds of questions where you all have to think of answers until someone duplicates or can’t think of one. The Doc himself runs the games and controls who starts, how much time you have and how many ‘zeros’ the loser of each round should take.

The game required no setting up other than batteries being inserted and the ‘zero’ cards being pushed out of the perforated card. I love that there is a handy storage space in the back of Speedy Doc to keep them safe and use as required during play. There is a simple on/off switch on the back of the doc and then he is ready to go. You don’t really need to read the instructions other than how to get him to repeat something or pause the game as he guides you through and takes control of the game.

To control Speedy Doc you press lightly on his head, so to start a game someone presses his head and then he starts the first round. He will tell you which player should start by saying something like ‘the player with the longest hair’ and tell you whether to continue left or right. He’ll then ask a question such as ‘name a sport you can play at school’ or ‘name countries beginning with B’ and then you go round giving your answer. After you speak you need to press the doc’s head and then it’s the next player but beware, if you take too long to give your answer, he will time you out and that will be the end of the round. He’ll then tell you how many ‘zeroes’ to take before proceeding with the next round. After several rounds he’ll declare the end of the game and the person with the least zeroes is the winner!

To keep things interesting Speedy Doc with make random changes in the game such as switching the order of the players or telling the player who just got a ‘zero’ to give it to another player. We found the game fast paced and fun, with lots of silly answers coming out as we tried to think of ideas for the answers. You can tell the doc if someone duplicates or says a wrong answer and he’ll end that round. Being suitable for ages 8+ is probably right as younger ones aren’t able to think of enough answers to keep up, although my almost 7yr old joined in and we let him off for some of his answers to involve him in the game. My 9yr old enjoyed it though (well maybe not when she got a zero) but it does bring out the competitive side in people but also gets you using your brain and thinking of things to answer the question. We enjoyed it and think it’ll be a great game to bring out on Saturday nights and at Christmas when we can have lots of family fun!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

Scotland Yard Board Game for National Unplugging Day

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Fiona Martin

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.

Bellz Magnetic Pickup Game

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Fiona Martin

Bellz is a fun magnetic pick up game from Spin Master that all the family can join in with and is also great to take away with you as it comes with it’s own handy travel pouch that stores all the pieces and doubles up as the game board. Aimed at ages 6+, my 8 and 6yr olds were keen to give it a try!

The game comprises of the following parts:

A zip up travel pouch/game board
A double ended magnet

Lots of colourful bells in various sizes and 4 colours

The idea of the came is to collect all of the bells in one colour. The colour you collect is determined by the first colour you pick up that no one else is already collecting. The magnetic wand is used to pick up the bells and has a bigger stronger magnet at one end and a less powerful one on the smaller end. It’s up to you which end you choose but we found the big end really strong so tended to play with the smaller side.

You can pick up as many bells as you want in each turn, as long as they are all of the same colour otherwise play passes to the next person. With the strength of the magnet you can make a chain of bells which adds to the excitement.

My children loved this game, the jingle of the bells kept them excited and the thrill of what they could collect on the magnet. It is tricky, not as easy as it looks at all, but we did have our own rules to simplify it a little. For such a simple game, it has been played many times over the last few weeks and it’s always lovely to see both concentration and smiles on their faces. I also love the travel pouch, a round neoprene zip up case that holds all of the bells and magnetic wand so the game is completely self contained. A fun family game that everyone can enjoy and is great to take on holidays, weekends away for a bit of healthy competition and fun!