Toy Review: Brainbox Transport Game

Every weekend we have a family games night. After tea we get a game out, have a laugh and just enjoy being together. On Sunday night after the dishwasher had been stacked, I brought out a new game for us to try – the Brainbox Transport Game. I had a sneaky suspicion that it would hit the spot, and I was right. It was brilliant fun for us all.

Giveaway & Review: Brainbox Transport Game

It’s a quick fire memory game. You take it in turns to pick a card and study it hard for 10 seconds. Roll the dice and answer the corresponding question on the back of the card. If you answer correctly you keep the card, get it wrong and it goes back in the pile. The person with the most cards after 5 or 10 minutes is the winner.

The box contains 55 transport cards, 1 rules card, 1 sand timer and 1 dice. The Brainbox Transport Game is suitable for ages 4+ and costs around £11.99. It’s designed in the UK and made from 70% recycled material.

The Brainbox Transport Game is brilliant if you’ve got a short amount of time for a quick game, or if you want to play round after round after round. All of the cards have different modes of transport on them; bus, plane, bulldozer, gondola, ice cream van etc.

The questions on the back of the cards test your memory of the details on the card. For example – How many people are on the bus? What colour is the car? Are there any clouds in the sky?

Giveaway & Review: Brainbox Transport Game

You can play this game on your own, or with as many people as you want. The youngest player starts, takes a card, memorises the picture for 10 seconds, then passed the card to another player. You the roll a dice to pick the question number and you have to answer the question, for example “Can you see the control tower?” If you’re right you keep the card, if you’re wrong you put it back in the pile and the next player takes their turn. Easy.

We liked a lot of things about this game. Primarily it was a lot of fun and it will be a regular at our family games nights. I liked that it was sneakily working all of our memory muscles (if there’s such a thing, but you know what I mean). I also liked that my son was as keen as mustard to read out the questions on the back of the cards. He’s not a reluctant reader, but it’s always good to see him really wanting to read to us.

The Brainbox Transport Game was a big hit. There are lots of other versions of the game if transport doesn’t float your boat (see what I did there?).

Find out more about the Brainbox range of games on their website.

We were sent the Brainbox Transport Game for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Board Game Club Review: Jungle Speed

I am part of the Blogger Board Game Club run by Playtime PR. Each month 50 bloggers are sent a new (or new-ish, or at least new to them) board game to play and put to the test. This month we were sent Jungle Speed, a game none of us had heard of before.

Board Game Club Review: Jungle Speed

Jungle Speed is a card game created by Thomas Vuarchex and Pierric Yakovenko in 1991 and is produced by Asmodee Editions. It is played with a pack non-standard playing cards. It’s a bit like Snap but more complicated.

The box contains a deck of cards, a wooden totem and a bag to store the game in. Because there are so few elements and they can be packed away in a small bag; making it an ideal travel game. Jungle Speed is suitable for 2 or more players aged 7+. Each game should take around 15 minutes to play. It has an RRP of £14.99 and is available from a range of retailers including Amazon.

The game revolves around matching cards with identical symbols. Just like Snap, but the pack of cards all have different symbols on, some of which look similar but they’re not. Because some of the symbols are so similar it does make the game more challenging and players are more likely to snatch the totem at the wrong time meaning they have to pick up extra cards.

Board Game Club Review: Jungle Speed

To play, you shuffle the cards and deal them out equally to each player face down. Players take turns playing the top card from their stacks in a clockwise direction. There is a wooden cylinder called a Totem in the middle of the table, when a player plays a card that matches the symbol of another player’s top card, the two players must ‘duel’ to grab the totem. The loser of the duel takes both players played cards, as well as any cards under the totem and so it continues until the winner doesn’t have any cards left.

I explained the rules to the boys, one of which said it sounded boring, so he walked off and didn’t want anything more to do with it. So I played the game with the remaining 7 year old boy. He’s bright and he picked up the rules quickly enough. We played the game several times just to make sure we weren’t missing anything. Maybe we were, but neither of us had anything particularly good to say about Jungle Speed.

I wonder if it is better and more exciting played with more players. There wasn’t much action other than turning cards and even when we matched a card, snatched the totem and gave away our discarded cards to the loser, it wasn’t as much fun as a simple game of snap.

Board Game Club Review: Jungle Speed

After we’d packed the game away I read some reviews on Amazon, most of which were absolutely glowing. I’ve re-read the rules a couple of times since, just to check we were playing it correctly and we were. Jungle Speed is not for us. It’s not exciting, it’s not especially engaging and it lacked the speed and fun of a simple game of snap. Sorry Jungle Speed, we didn’t really like you.

We were sent the Jungle Speed board game for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own. This blog post contains affiliate links.

Find other board game and toy reviews here.

Board Game Club Review: Hey that’s my Fish!

This month we have joined the Blogger Board Game Club run by Playtime PR. Each month 50 bloggers are sent a new (or new-ish, or at least new to them) board game to play and put to the test. We were asked some questions about how old we all were and what our favourite and least favourite games were, then we waited for our first specially picked board game. We got Hey that’s my fish!

Hey that's my Fish! Board Game Club Review: Hey that's my Fish!

I have seen Hey that’s my fish! before in the shops, but hadn’t really looked at it too closely as my son is 6 years old and it’s advertised as suitable for ages 8+. We had planned to meet my brother, his wife and my seven year old nephew for lunch, so I threw Hey that’s my fish! in my bag to keep the boys entertained.

The game is really quite simple to set up and play. Put the fish cards in eight rows. The fish cards have one, two or three fish printed on them, and you need to mix them right up so they’re fairly well distributed across the board. Hey that’s my Fish! is suitable for 2 to 4 players. Each player takes two of the coloured penguins (choose from red, blue, yellow or green) and you place them randomly on the board. When laid out the “board” of fish cards isn’t huge, maybe around A4 size, which means it’s good for playing on small tables in restaurants or even on trains.

Hey that's my Fish! Board Game Club Review: Hey that's my Fish!

Starting with the youngest player first, you can move one penguin in a straight line in any direction, landing on a fish card and collecting it. You can’t move over any penguins which might be in your way, nor can your penguin paddle through the gaps in the ice where other players have collected their cards.

The aim of the game is to collect the most fish, so strategically it makes sense to try to land on and collect as many of the two and three fish cards as you can, then the one fish cards, but it’s not always that simple. Once all the cards have gone, or a penguin impasse has been reached, then you count your fish. The player with the most fish wins.

Hey that's my Fish! Board Game Club Review: Hey that's my Fish!

The verdict on Hey that’s my Fish!

Hey that’s my Fish! is a good introduction to strategy games. The key to success is thinking two or three moves ahead and trying to block your rival penguins in if you can. The boys, aged six and seven got the hang of the rules really quickly and enjoyed the game. It’s fairly quick to play and was a perfect for playing while we waited for our meals to arrive.

It entertained the adults and children equally well, and it’s the kind of game you can really get seriously strategic about if you want. We kept things light and fun for the boys and it’s something I know they will want to play again and again.

It’s a small game in a small box, so it’s the kind of thing we would take on holiday or keep in our activity bag which I have ready for when we go out with the boy.

Hey that’s my Fish! costs around £10 and is suitable for ages 8+ (though my six year old had no trouble at all with it). It’s available from a wide range of retailers and online.

We were sent the Hey that’s my Fish! board game for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own. This blog post contains affiliate links.

Find other board game and toy reviews here.