Cheatwell Games Travel Tension Review

Reviewed by Deborah Banasko

I was delighted to be asked to review the Tension Travel game by Cheatwell Games.  It arrived just days before a long trip to Devon so we were all really pleased to have some in-car entertainment.  This is a “top ten naming game” where players race against a timer to name the top ten answers on a particular topic.

In the pack you have the card dispenser, Tension cards, sand timer, scoring tokens and the instructions.  The cards are double sided and cover over 1000 topics so there is plenty of game play.  The opposing player or team select the top card and place it into the card dispenser, ensuring that the button poppers are raised.  The topic is read aloud, for example “Girls’ names beginning with “B”, and the answering team or player must name as many correct answers as possible within one minute, without looking at the card.  Each time one is correct, a popper button is pushed down to keep score.  Tokens are then awarded based on the score (1 is equivalent to a yellow token, 5 is red and 10 is blue).
The other player or team then have a turn.  Play continues until all tokens are used, although you can just have a quick game of a stated number of rounds if you prefer so play can really be as long as you wish.  We also found in the car that handling tokens was a bit tricky so we used a pen and paper to make it a little easier. Other than that, it’s a very easy game to play on the move. 

This is a game for 2 or more players, or teams so it has flexibility depending whether you are in the car (boat/plane), in a restaurant trying to avoid device-based entertainment or at home.  The game is so compact it would fit in my handbag which is perfect for short and long trips.  The target age is 12 and over, and this is really due to the difficulty of some of the questions. My 9 year old could join in with some questions if we chose the right card for him or his team, but generally he would not score as highly as everyone else which he became a little frustrated about at times.  I personally would consider the recommended age when making the purchase for your family as a whole.  It would be great for a family of teenagers or a group of adults, but if you do have a younger child as well you can find ways to get them involved as we did so don’t be too put off, especially if you put that child with a strong team member to help and whisper answers to them.  My kids are 12, 9 and 5 and we made it work with the older two quite well. To be honest, my 9 year old knew more “Famous Pirates” than I did!

As an indication of the type of questions to expect, they range from “Dickensian Characters”, to “World Famous Buildings”, then “Types of Wood” and “Things to do with Cluedo”.  The topics are wonderfully random, “Famous Cape Wearers” being a particular favourite as my 5 year old chipped in with that one. Also a special mention for “Things that Smell Bad” as yes the obvious ones are in there to the delight of my kids!  It feels like this game was designed by a very intelligent person with a sense of humour as there’s a really good mix of topics, some really quirky and funny ones covering so many subject areas.  This is a fun, quick and easy to follow game. We really enjoyed it as a car game heading off on our holidays but also when out eating in restaurants as we could play a couple of rounds whilst waiting for the food to arrive, but we could pack it away in seconds.

Naturally we will eventually have made our way through all of the cards, but that’s when you pass it onto another family for them to enjoy. The £12.99 price tag feels fair when you consider the amount of play.

The only negative I could find is that I just could not get the card to slide into the front of the dispenser so it needs to be held flat to prevent it from sliding off.  This was more frustrating than anything else and not really worth a point deduction.

I would award this travel game 5 stars out of 5; easy set up, fun and a little noisy as the competition heats up!

Rating: 5/5
RRP: £12.99 (currently £9.99)

You can purchase this game from Amazon here; https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cheatwell-Games-Travel-Tension/dp/B07MLJPM8D/ref=sr_1_5?crid=WLV1GD4Q4HM0&keywords=cheatwellgamestraveltension&qid=1693229172&sprefix=cheatwellgamestraveltensionaps127&sr=8-5&th=1