Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel Board Game Review

Reviewed by Claire Giles

Our youngest two girls absolutely love Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel the BBC Programme and it is regular Saturday night viewing in our house so knew they would be so excited to try out a board game adaptation of the show. The game box looks quite mature which fits in with the age range it is aimed at, age 10 to adults. My youngest two are twins age 11 so at the lower end of the age range. The game is for 2 or more players. 2 to 3 players can play as individuals. If there are more than 3 players, then you need to create teams to play.

The objective of the game is to complete The Wheel by answering your own set of 7 questions and make it through to the End Game where one final question stands in the way of victory.

Inside the box there is a large spinning wheel with a unique push down mechanism, contestant spinner board, 266 category question cards, 39 end game cards and rules sheet. The 266 categories cards comprise of 14 categories, these are:
Food & Drink, Social Media, Sport, Pop Music, TV, Numbers, Superheroes, Science, Animals, Video Games, Travel, Movies, History and Celebrities. So, the categories are quite broad.

Game set up is really quick and simple. You simply place The Wheel on hard, flat and level surface (not a carpet), choose 7 question categories and place these category cards face down in piles around the wheel, place the end game cards facedown near the wheel and place the contestant spinner board the correct way round near the wheel (one side has three coloured chairs on it for 3 players / teams and the other side two coloured chairs on it for 2 players / teams). Each player / team chooses a coloured chair from the contestant spinner board. The contestant spinners board is spun and whichever player / team coloured chair it lands on takes control of The Wheel and goes first.

The player / team in control of The Wheel chooses a category from the 7 around the board and spins The Wheel by pushing down the button in the middle of The Wheel. You really only need a general push to spin The Wheel. The harder you push the button the longer The Wheel spins for and if you completely depress the button it spins for ages. The Wheel has 3 colours around it that the arrow could land on blue, gold and red.
If the arrow lands on red, shutdown, the player / team loses control of The Wheel and the contestant spinner board is spun again to see who takes control of The Wheel.
If the arrow lands on gold the team / player is asked an easy gold question from the selected category card.
If the arrow lands on blue the team / player is asked a trickier blue question from the selected category card.
If the player / team answers the question incorrectly then they lose control of The Wheel and the contestant spinner is spun again. If the player / team answers correctly they keep the category card as proof of clearing that category. They then choose another category, spin The Wheel and try to clear more categories. They remain in control of The Wheel until they answer incorrectly or spin red ‘shutdown’. Play continues until a player / team has cleared all 7 categories by answering questions correctly for each one, completed The Wheel, and they go immediately to End Game. To win they need to answer one End Game question correctly. If the player / team answers incorrectly, the contestant spinner is spun again for control of The Wheel.

There is also a quickplay game which is more like the actual TV show. The difference is that whenever a category question is answered correctly all the remaining cards for that category are removed from the game. All teams / players are aiming to complete the same Wheel, rather than each completing their own Wheel. Once all seven categories have been cleared from The Wheel the player / team that cleared the seventh and final category gets to play the End Game. If they answer correctly, they win the game. If they answer incorrectly the contestant spinner is used to select the next player / team to face an End Game question. This continues until there is a winner.

The more we have played the game we have realised that some things are lacking or could be better. One of the things my girls love about the TV show is that the theme tune or songs are played whenever The Wheel is spun. There are no sounds in the game, so we ended up having to find the TV show theme tune online and play it whenever we spun The Wheel. Sounds when The Wheel spun honestly would have been a nice addition to the game (maybe with an on / off button for those who didn’t want it). There are only 19 cards for each category which means that now we have played the game a few times if we are using the same categories, we are already repeating questions which is rather disappointing. It would also be nice if there was something to win like paper money especially when playing with kids.

We played with two adults and two children and overall really enjoyed the game. Infact our daughters enjoyed it so much it has been played nearly everyday for a week! The questions are neither too hard nor too easy, so good for older children and adults alike. If you are looking for a fun family game or game to play with friends over Christmas then it definitely is that. It is fun to play as is but could be better with a few easy tweaks though this may just be personal preference.

Rating: 4/5

RRP: £27.99

This product can be purchased from Amazon here.