A Month of Friday Night Family Games Nights Review-Led Article
THESE ITEMS WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE THE REVIEWER'S OWN.
Reviewed by Joanna Woodburn
The last year or so has put the spotlight on ways to enhance quality family time at home. Fun, family games should ultimately bring your family together and we found Fridays with that ‘end of the week’ feeling to be the ideal time to come together and let off steam!
Get ready for some laughs with Happy Salmon, created by Exploding Kittens, a fun party game for ages 6+. It can be played with 3 to 8 players and so is the ideal go-to for a family games night and is a quick-fire 90 second game that can be enjoyed during any occasion!
This exciting game is so easy to play, with simple rules and is action-packed, with players being as quick as they can to find another player with a matching action, such as ‘High Five!’ and perform it with them. The compact, well designed box is very portable and contains two brightly coloured packs of 48 playing cards, a set of Happy Salmon ‘The Rules’ and a fancy code for the buyer to unlock a bonus gift!
‘The Toy Insider’ states that this is ‘easily one of the best games of the year…if not ever!’ and I would absolutely agree. For me, the best games are always those which are the simplest to learn and which appeal to all generations and Happy Salmon perfectly fits the bill on both counts.
The ideal game for a Friday Games Night In, Happy Salmon is incredibly quick and easy to learn, with minimal reading of rules needed before play begins. Onlookers may feel rather puzzled by the noisy antics they see but you will be having too much fun to care! Happy Salmon is well recommended for families looking for a carefree, lively and fun game guaranteed to entertain all members of the family from the youngest to the oldest.
Rating: A well deserved 5/5
RRP: £13
For more information or to buy, visit www.explodingkittens.com
We combined Happy Salmon with Throw Throw Avocado, also by Exploding Kittens to make for a lively, fun filled entertaining evening. The ultimate sequel to the smash hit game Throw Throw Burrito, Throw Throw Avocado is a unique dodgeball card game, with opponents going head to head collecting cards while throwing and avoiding the squishy, appealing avocados!
Throw Throw Avocado can be played with 2 to 6 players and the suggested age is 7+, which is most likely because of the physical nature of the game. The aim of the game is to play a matching card game and try to get as many identical sets of cards as you can before the game ends. The soft, squishy avocados are placed in the middle and players are allowed to declare battles at any time by throwing them at opponents – the game ultimately ends with a Western type duel, which is great fun for all!
It is best to clear the space before playing this game as we found it quickly turned into highly entertaining chaos and the most fun we had enjoyed in ages! Throw Throw Avocado also really appealed to older children as well as the younger members of the family, as the missiles (very soft) were flung, with shouts of ‘Avocado War!’ as we tried to dive for cover. Silly, fast paced and full of laughs – we found Throw Throw Avocado to be the perfect tonic for our Friday Night Family Games Night – another fabulous game from Exploding Kittens!
Rating: Great fun! 5/5
RRP: £25
For more information or to buy, visit www.explodingkittens.com
Describing itself as the ‘Kitty powered version of Russian Roulette, ‘Exploding Kittens’ original edition is a dynamic and exciting fun party game from this iconic brand. The card game is aimed at ages 7+ and is for 2 to 5 players. The lovingly designed game box is eye-catching, appealing and compact enough to make it ideal for travel.
We found Exploding Kittens to be similar to Uno, except there are goats, magical enchiladas and kittens out to kill you! Exploding Kittens is stylish and clever without ever taking itself too seriously, it has been a worldwide success story, with over 10 million copies being sold for good reason!
Highly simple to play, with very easy to follow rules, competitors draw cards until someone draws the ticking timebomb ‘Exploding Kitten’ card – this is when they explode and are out of the game! Exploding can be avoided by various tactics such as defusing the kitten with a laser pointer or a catnip sandwich or betraying friends by relocating an exploding kitten to the top of the draw pile. This is a game of strategy to trick your friends whilst avoiding and staying out of danger yourself.
Exploding Kittens is family friendly, with quick fire gameplay and a fun theme built in without focus and an element of deviousness, competitors will be blown to smithereens! We found it to be the perfect game of attention and thinking skills to complement the more carefree and lively other games we had enjoyed playing the previous week.
Rating: An explosive 5/5!
RRP: £20
For more information or to buy, visit www.explodingkittens.com
From the same Exploding Kittens team, Poetry for Neanderthals is the ideal, simple game for a Friday Family Games Night – entertaining, lively and fun filled for family members of all ages. With short, punchy rounds designed to grab everyone’s attention and keep up the interest levels. This is a game which gives you an excuse to whack your family around the head with a giant, inflatable No! club whilst grunting single syllable words – the perfect Friday night entertainment!
Players are split into two teams, with one poet and one guesser in each team. The poet then picks up a card and has to try to convey to their team members what is on the card. It sounds simple but this is Neanderthal Poetry so the words can only be one syllable!! It certainly is easier said than done, particularly with the inflatable club looming behind!
Poetry for Neanderthals is a very good value game with a brilliant, simple concept – which is that it is deceptively challenging and unpredictable! Added to which, the elements of rough and tumble play are always brilliant fun and guaranteed to bring people of all ages closer together whilst having a great time! Throughout the game, players are encouraged to act like Neanderthals from start to finish – at the end the winning team are allowed to draw one of Grok’s cards and fill in the blanks – the losing team being ready with the No! stick in case the poetry is not Neanderthal enough and it never is!
Rating: Brilliant!! 5/5
RRP: £20
For more information or to buy, visit www.explodingkittens.com
We all know that it is not always easy to reclaim family time with teenagers and other adults when competing with online gaming, social media and television based entertainment. Enter stage right with the conversation starting award winning brilliant Twisted History board game which is boldly designed to do just that. Even those members of the family who do not usually like board games will be instantly drawn in, engaged and entertained.
Serving as a clever cross between Horrible Histories and Trivial Pursuit, with blood and gore thrown in for good measure, we all absolutely loved the Twisted History board game. This is a brilliantly clever, unique and entertaining concept. Twisted History is the new party board game on the block and excellent fun for families with teenage children and adults. With some of the many questions a little gruesome or indeed, rather risqué, the recommended age is 14+.
Designed for 2 to 6 players, competitors have their historical knowledge tested to stay steps ahead of the executioner. Can you survive the threat of the rack? The aim of the game is for a player to correctly answer one question from each of the seven twisted eras of history to win the game. Whilst journeying through history, questions are cleverly designed to provoke debate and conversation, while having fun along the way. There will also be so much to learn as you journey through although far removed from whatever you were taught in school! Everyone, history buffs included, will learn something new from playing this game.
The Twisted History board game had us hooked from the start, with its unique quirkiness and gruesome themes, it kept us all entertained for well over an hour during a Friday family game night. Some of the twisted trivia was absolutely mind bogglingly debatable and had us talking about it for days later! We all knew The Middle Ages were full of gore, with such gory and gruesome ways to die but we were still gobsmacked by some of the details – who knew! There is also a great mix of funny and gory answers so even players who don’t really like history will be thoroughly entertained and have fun as they play.
We were impressed how the Twisted History game perfectly combined strategy with fun, which is not always easily done. With every question we got wrong taking us a step closer to the executioner, it certainly put our wits to the test. There is also great novelty in the many twists and turns, which allow players strategic choices to get ahead or to cleverly fast-track opponents, the added element of competitiveness really added to the creativity of the game. With so many of the 350 questions based around random facts, there is no real pressure to know the answers, which makes for greater entertainment.
All in all, the Twisted History Board game was a resounding success for an entertaining, fun family night in with a difference and a twist and comes most highly recommended!
Rating: A super 5/5
RRP: £24.99
Available to buy from Amazon here
Our final Friday Family Games Night was inspired by the fabulous world of Super Mario Kart – much loved in our household for so many years! Super Mario Kart Deluxe is an exciting manual racing game, the action circuit is cleverly designed to resemble the actual play of an online video game. With six unique gimmicks and movements, as well as an action counter, the aim of the game is to quickly but carefully drive your playing kart figure around the track to finish in first position. Each player has buttons, a slider and a tilt lever to move their kart figure through the gimmicks so perseverance and skill is needed for success!
We found the set to be well made and super quick to set up, each component is simply plugged into the other and amazingly we discovered that the set required no batteries, which is always a bonus! Easy to assemble and also to disassemble, it fits neatly into the box when not in use. The game is small and neat, with lots of super cool details – Mario and Luigi even have their own small parking spaces on their respective sides of the track!
Mario Kart Deluxe is also brilliant fun – from the moment the two flags are flipped up and the lever pulled back to propel the Mario and Luigi kart figures forward, it had all players competitively hooked from start to finish! The player’s buttons and levers can be used in different ways according to the obstacles, sometimes needing more sensitivity and at times needing more force and power – which we found out as we played on! This is a game which demands skill, coordination and problem solving, which means competitors can improve with practice and time, which certainly makes for more compulsive and competitive entertainment. It also appeared that Mario at times had an easier circuit, he certainly seemed to win more than Luigi, which became a bit of a joke – this is not a game to be ever taken seriously!
The popular and appealing characters of Mario and Luigi, who have been much loved by my now adult sons over the years really added to the offline fun. The Mario Kart Deluxe game will captivate both younger children as well as holding some nostalgia for those older players. We certainly had lots of great family fun, across the generations, with some players showing more determination to improve their skills and playing for hours on end. We left the compact game set up so we could return to it for a bit of extra fun and a quick fun blast round from time to time between playing other games – such is the beauty of the design.
A brilliant, action concept, the Mario Kart Deluxe Game is super value for money and guaranteed to entertain all ages of the family with hours and hours of laughter and racing fun. Highly recommended for offering a competitive dash of variety and lively, active fun to a night of family entertainment.
Rating: Great fun! 5/5
RRP: £34.99
Available to buy from Amazon here
With such a great variety of highly recommended games, there is bound to be something to please everyone! Such a simple, fun and memorable way to bring the all the family together. I would highly recommend Friday Night Family Games Night to all!