Tetris Speed Card Game Review

Reviewed by Amanda Hayes

Buying reasonably priced gifts or toys for older children can be hard, so I frequently look for some sort of game. Board games these days can often be out of my price range so a card game is the alternative on my radar, I want something fun and quick for all the family though, as its difficult to get everyone sitting down at the same time these days.

Ideal Games do a range of Tetris based products, including board and card games. Loosely based on the tile-matching video game that was designed in the 1980’s they use the existing Tetris shapes to create patterns or shapes. Being based on a video game but not using a screen seemed like a winner to me so I was more than happy to test out the Tetris Speed card game.

When the game arrived, it was in a box not much larger than a standard deck of cards and I was pleased to see that it had limited packaging, which is not always the case with toys or games. The box is a colourful purple and orange with a brief overview of the game on the rear. On the front it showed the optimum age, 6+ and number of players, 2-8. The pack slides open to show two decks of cards, one white and one purple both emblazoned with the branding Tetris Speed. The cards are smaller than playing cards and square rather than rectangular, turning them over I saw two shapes in different colours, one small and one large. Time to read the instructions, which are on four double sided and different coloured cards. There are 84 cards and the white pack only, 49 cards, is played with 2-4 players. For a larger game, 5-8 players you can add the additional 35 purple cards, these are identical but just give each player a larger number of cards to play with.

The game starts with one card being turned face up in the centre of the table, the card shows a large, coloured Tetris shape on 2/3 of the card and a smaller coloured shape on the other 1/3. This smaller shape has the word “next” above it. The aim of the game is to put down a card that matches the “next” coloured shape, and the winner is the player who gets rid of all of their cards first. The issue is it takes a while for your brain to switch from automatically looking at the larger shape, which resulted in a lot of inadvertent cheating going on! The game is fast, furious and fun as there are no turns, you just go as soon and as fast as you can match a card. The beginning of the game purely works on speed of reflex, so everyone is desperately trying to get their card down first, as players start running out of matching shapes then things slow down a bit and some of the slower players have time to catch up a bit.

The beauty of Tetris speed is you don’t need long to play it, 5-10 minutes per game, its small and compact to store and move around and you don’t need score pads and pencils. On top of all that its fun for all the family.
Recommended as a gift for any age or a purchase for your holiday/Christmas games cupboard.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: Around £15.00

This product can be purchased from Amazon here.