Pass The Bomb 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 Jenny Bray

This game comes in a blue box with a cute red cartoon caricature of a bomb with hands, legs, arms and eyes on the front.  The ‘o’ of the word bomb is also a bomb.  It is a word game and says it is for 2-12 players that are 8+.  It comes with a red plastic bomb, which needs 2 AAA batteries (that aren’t included in the box), 110 double sided cards which are red on one side and blue on the other, all with two or three letters on, a dice, instruction manual and a storage bag. The addition of the storage bag is because it makes it ‘the perfect game to take to any party’.  It would make a good party game, but I’d want to find a suitable little box to put the cards in, otherwise they’d get damaged very quickly if left loose in the bag with the bomb and dice.  The outer box the game came in is a little flimsy too, so doesn’t feel like it will last as well as my other game boxes on my games shelf.

To play you need to throw the dice to determine whether the letters on the card you pick out can be used anywhere in a word (the tick tack and bomb picture side) or cannot be used at either the start (the tick side) or not at the end of a word (the bomb side).  As soon as you’ve seen what the dice landed on then you turn a card over, start the bomb ticking and have to think of a word.  As soon as you’ve thought of a word you pass the bomb to the player on the left who has to think of a word using the same rules.  This continues until the bomb goes off.  The player holding the bomb when it goes off gets the card as their penalty and the game continues until the cards run out.  The player with the least cards at the end wins.  The instructions suggest using 13 cards at a time but we switched and changed this up depending on how long we wanted the game to last.

I’m not sure why the cards have different coloured sides.  I initially thought that one side may be easier, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  It makes the overall game more colourful, which will probably make it more appealing for the younger players, I just wasn’t sure why the colours were there.

This game is made by Asmodee, part of Esdevium Games.  They sell a large selection of games to suit different types of game players on their website at www.asmodee.co.uk.  The box says this game has been around for over 25 years, with over a million copies sold in the UK!

I would count this game as really straightforward to learn and a mix of fun and educational.  It also involves a little bit of bluff, as you can make words up and get away with it if not challenged!  I was quite impressed by my teenager’s vocabulary, when challenging him after thinking he’s making words up.

This is a good family game and I think the age recommendation is right at being 8+.  My youngest child, at 9 years old, is definitely at a disadvantage in not knowing how to spell more complex words.  He tends to be the one most easily frustrated by it, when he starts losing he panics and it all goes downhill.

This game received mixed reviews from my children, with a real crossover between loving it and asking to play it lots and stropping due to panicking, not being able to think of words and then losing (all of them, not just my aforementioned youngest)!

I think it would work even better as a party game, possibly in groups rather than as single players.  Playing it with my family highlighted the different skill levels of different aged players, but this would be eliminated in a larger party setting of mixed age groups.

The plastic bomb is quite annoying as it ticks loudly before it goes off.  However, when all my children were laughing at each other and trying to throw each other off, I could see why it needed to be at the volume it’s at to be heard above them so can see this would be needed in a party setting too.  An adjustable volume on it would have been good for more ambient home use though.

The bomb is set to randomly go off at any time between 10 seconds and a minute, so you can’t tell when it will go off. This also made it good for playing hot potato and passing it round between each other rather than playing the full game with the cards.

This would make a great family gift or gift for that couple who host parties but seem to have everything for Christmas (as it’s fast approaching) or for a birthday, house warming or other gift. It would make a slightly unusual gift but would definitely be a talking point and could even be played with the recipient straight after gifting.  As the box and cards seem a little fragile I’d be wary of gifting to anyone with very young children who may get hold of it.

Rating: 4/5

RRP: £24.99.

This game can be viewed on the Asmodee website here and can be purchased from retailers. The cheapest I found was £24.99 at John Lewis, here.