Roly Poly Goalie 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 Melody
Playing board games is one of our favourite things to do at Christmas as a family, each year we buy a new game to play over Christmas (which Santa very kindly delivers for us on Christmas Eve). It’s great to have time together as a family when the children aren’t on their devices, and we can engage with each other playing games. With so many great games on the market it’s hard to know which to pick, so when I was asked to review the Roly Poly Goalie Game I was very happy to help.
We already have a few games from Exploding Kittens, which are family favourites including Throw Throw Burrito, Throw Throw Avocado and Exploding Minions. All of these are great quality and engaging, so I was expecting similar from the Roly Poly Goalie. The game is described as “A card game of tossing, rolling, and goaling that gets everyone up and laughing in minutes”, it is apparently based on the classic game “War”, although we’ve never played this so can’t compare the two. The game encourages active play, problem solving, counting skills and family bonding.
When the delivery arrived, I was slightly amused that it came in a massive cardboard box, then inside was the much smaller game box (no protective packing, but it arrived intact!).
The game itself came in a brightly coloured, good quality, cardboard box with clear plastic “windows” showing the roly poly balls with smiley faces. The back of the box had an overview of the game, there was also a section with a note from the game designer explaining that his four-year old daughter had helped to design the game so that it appealed to younger children, as many existing games were not engaging for that age group.
Inside the box was a plastic tray containing the four squishy balls, 52 cards, 7 roly poly battle discs and an instruction leaflet. Roly Poly Goalie is aimed at players age 4+ and for 2-6 players. The average game time is 10 minutes; in my opinion this is a good length of time for a game aimed at younger children as sometimes they tend to lose interest over a longer period of time.
After a quick read of the instruction leaflet, which all seemed fairly self-explanatory, we started our first game. I also liked the fact that a section of the leaflet contained instructions specifically for children, which was a much-simplified version of the full instructions. The game is played in teams, we chose to play one adult and one child per team, although another option would be to play adults vs children, in which case there are some extra options for the battles to make it a fairer playing field, with it being slightly more difficult for adults (although in my experience, the children were actually better at the challenges, than the adults in our family!)
Teams get dealt an even number of cards face down, these are number cards with scores from 1-4 on. During the game, the cards are turned over by each team (at the same time) to give a score. The team with the highest score takes both cards and adds them to their collection pile. If both teams have the same score, then this means there is a battle. Each team picks one of their players to do the battle. There are four different types of battle, chosen by picking a card from the pile of “Holy Moly Roly Poly Battle Discs” ranging from being the first to get a roly poly between the opponent’s legs, to knocking the roly poly from the top of the box, to having to hit the opposition with one of the (very soft) roly polies. The final battle of the game is the Holy Moly Roly Poly, this was lots of fun where the players in the battle have to move the roly poly across the floor and onto the battle disc, using only their heads. Surprisingly difficult for the adults in our family, much easier for the children!
At the end of the game, the winning team either has all the cards (if this is the case the game ends immediately), or after all battles have been played and the team with the highest score.
We really enjoyed playing Roly Poly Goalie, it was lots of fun and fast-paced so kept the children engaged throughout. I would say that you do need a bit of space to play the game, we pushed our furniture to the edges of the room to give a battle space in the middle. The pieces are good quality and colourful. This would make a lovely Christmas gift for younger children and would be great fun to play on Christmas Day. Our children are a bit older now (youngest is 11), so we have found they prefer the “Throw Throw Burrito/Avocado” games also available from Exploding Kittens. Roly Poly Game appears to be a junior version of these, with slightly less challenging battles.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £19.99
For more information or to buy, visit www.explodingkittens.com