Toodles: It Takes Two To Doodle Game Review
DISCLOSURE - THIS ITEM WAS GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE THE REVIEWER'S OWN.
Reviewed by Dottie Rood
As a ‘gaming’ family (and I don’t mean on a computer!) I was very excited to have the opportunity to review ‘Toodles’.
As we were going to a hotel for a couple of nights (me, my husband, son, daughter-in-Law and 5 year old grandson) I thought this would be the ideal time to try it out so with anticipation of a fun game (looking at the laughing family on the front of the box) we arranged an appropriate time and space. (After our evening meal on our first night on a big table in the corner of the hotel).
We opened the box with eagerness, the packaging seemed a bit excessive with a portion of the box just cardboard across a void, and we took everything out.
There were 2 ‘doodle’ boards which did fit the box so I presume that was why there was a void inside. However, there was still some space that possible wasn’t really needed? We then took out a rule bag, 3 packs of cards, labelled ‘easy’, ‘medium’ and ‘hard’, a dice, egg timer, two ‘doodle’ pens (with erasers on the end), two double draw-ers, pen holder and two ‘doodle’ wands.
The rule book had 6 titles:
1. Set it up.
2. How to Score.
3. Team or Teams.
4. Let’s Toodle!
5. Game End.
6. How to Win.
On first reading it did seem a little confusing, however once we followed each section through it began to make sense.
Set it up: this just explained what everything is and was easy to follow as was How to Score. Team or Teams: explained that you needed at least 3 players to play (2 to draw 1 to guess) and could have up to 10 players which would involve having teams, again easy enough to follow. The Let’s Toodle section was the part that explained what ‘Toodling’ is!.
Two players hold 1 toodle wand each and place them in the toodle double draw-er and after deciding which level to draw they throw the dice and read the consecutive item (next to the number) off the card and begin to draw (the egg timer is 30 seconds so this is how long they have). Depending on how many players there are depends on how many people guess (this is explained really well in the rule book).
Even with our small group this was hilarious as the more dominant player (in this case my son!) tried to control the drawing which resulted in mostly unrecognisable drawings with really comical guesses. We didn’t use the timer straight away while we got used to the game and we also changed it slightly for the 5-year-old which worked well as we followed the principle of the game.
Game end: explains that you play10 rounds and How to Win describes how you get your points and ‘How you Win’
Playing with this ‘group’ was good fun and even my 5 year-old grandson gave the drawing and the guessing a good go.
I next asked my 3 granddaughters (10, 8 and 6) to play the game on their own. After much discussion and some explaining (by me!) they understood what they were supposed to do and played the game for over 20 minutes, taking turns drawing and guessing and having a really good time. When I asked had they enjoyed the game they all said yes!
To sum up I think this is a good all round game, it is suitable for small groups and I can see it being a huge success at our large family parties (especially if a few drinks are included!).
This game was created by Matt Edmondson. Matt is a Radio/D.J and T.V presenter who teamed up with his brother-in-law, Laurence Emmett, to create Format Games, they have a number of other games available.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £20
Available to buy from Amazon here.