Ravensburger Break Free Review
Reviewed by Louise Totton
We love board games in our house, but it can sometimes be a bit of a challenge to find one that appeals to both of my girls – aged six and nine. We find that some of the games that appeal to the six-year-old are too easy or ‘baby-ish’ for the older one, and if the nine-year-old finds a game challenging, it’d well beyond the capabilities of the smaller one.
We recently booked a much-needed long weekend away in a cottage in North Yorkshire, and as the time for departure loomed closer, so did the pretty grim looking weather forecast. It seemed our plans of lots of lovely long walks were now out of the window, and the cottage we booked had no Wi-fi. So I was now on the look out for some ways to fill in the cold and wet evenings. So I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief when we were sent Break Free by Ravensburger to try out – and just in time for departure too!
Break Free isn’t a board game as such – there is no board for a start. What it is, is a skill game – all of the participants are handcuffed together, and the winner is the first one to successfully pick their lock and escape the cuff. The game is suitable for ages 6+ and is played by 2-4 players. The instructions say the game will last around 15 minutes, making it ideal for filling in small chunks of time, such as before dinner or to have a quick round before bed.
The box contains 4 handcuffs with covers and chains, 4 lock picks, 12 unique lock inserts (3 colours – 4 of each), 12 corresponding victory tokens and a set of instructions. The game is a complete doddle to set up – the players each take a handcuff and a lock/maze. The colour coded lock (green is easy, yellow is intermediate, and red is hard) is them inserted into the cuff and the lock over placed on top. The players then connect all of the cuffs together, pick up their pick and are ready to break free.
The lock insets are basically 3D mazes that the players have to negotiate the key around. They have to do this by feel only as the lock cover means you can’t actually see the route your pick is taking. Once a player has popped completed a maze, they then select a coloured token that corresponds to the colour of the lock they have picked and move onto the next difficulty level. The game is won when all of players have picked a lock of each colour, and the points values of their coloured tokens are added up.
This is a brilliant little game. One of the things that I liked about it straight away is that it solves the arguments that we often have about who gets to go first – because all of the players play simultaneously. Break Free also promotes logical thought and patience over rushing and being frantic, which I really like given as kids are so used to instant gratification these days. We definitely found that slow and steady won the race here.
Whilst there are only three levels, there are actually twelve unique locks as within each difficulty level, all four of the locks are different. This massively increases the playability and longevity of the game as it reduces the ability of the kids to just remember the path through the maze.
We thought this game was fantastic, novel and not like any other game we’ve played before. It was just as challenging for the nine-year-old as it was for the six-year-old and is one of the few games were they’re actually playing against each other on a relatively even footing. There is an emergency release in case someone really can’t find their way out of the lock or needs the toilet in an emergency!
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £24.99
Available to buy from Amazon here.
