Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island (Gamewright)
Age 10+*
2-4 Players
30 mins

To win Forbidden Island you have to work as a team and you all have to win back all the treasures and after that you all have to make your way to the helicopter (Fools Landing) before the island sinks into the sea.

First, you set up the game by setting out the island and it's different every time, and you will be one of the characters in the team.  The characters are the Engineer, the Navigator, the Pilot, the Diver, the Messenger and the Explorer. In the game I played on the day I wrote this, I was the Explorer and the Explorer can move and shore up diagonally and the other players can't.  (Dad was the Messenger).

Our game set up

Our 'Island' at
the end of the game

When it's your turn you get to do 1 or 2 or 3 things, you can't do more than 3, and you can move or shore up parts of the island or give cards to each other if you're in the same place as someone else, or you can get a treasure if you have 4 cards the same and you get to a special place on the island.

After every turn, bits of the island sink. They either get flooded, OR disappear completely. If you draw a 'Waters Rise' card you increase the water level, and if that gets all the way up to the skeleton - you lose straight away.

We won the time we wrote this. I won all the treasure, but Dad had the helicopter!

I give it ten thumbs up, but I only have two. I would recommend it to my friends and I like it.









*Hello. Dad here. The age on the box says 10+. I think that if an adult who knows the rules plays too, younger kids can play the game as it's a co-operative team game.

Guess Who?

Guess Who? (MB Games)
Age 6+
2 players
5 mins

Our friends Alex and Damien made this version of Guess Who? especially for us when Mommy and Daddy got married.

It is different from the regular Guess Who? because it has our friends and family on the cards.

You each have a board (there's a red and a blue one - my favourite is the blue one and mostly I win) and you open the flapping bits so that the pictures are looking at you. Then you need to have one card each which will have a picture of someone on the flapping bits.

Then you chose who goes first, and the first player asks a question about the other person's card and based on what they say, you can knock down some of your flapping bits. Then the other person has a turn.

When you have one person left you can have a guess of the name of the other player's card.

The winner is the first one to the other player's card right. When you win you move the question mark and then you keep repeating this until someone has won five times.

I love the game. I think my friends will love it. I like that it is a special version.

I give it two thumbs up.

Bus Stop

Bus Stop (Orchard Toys)
Age 4-8
2-4 players
10-15 minutes

First, you chose a colour bus. The colours are red, yellow, blue and green. I pick blue (not every time). Then you put your little version of the bus on the arrow, and you roll a white dice and a red dice. 

The red dice tells you how many spaces you have to move, and the white dice tells you how many passengers you add or subtract from your bus. On each space there is a plus and a minus sign to tell you what to do.

When all the players get to the Stop space, the one with the most passengers on their bus is the winner.

I have nine favourite passengers. They are always the ones I want to put on the bus.

I like this game. It is good because it has really cool passengers, and the board is a jigsaw puzzle for you to set up. You don’t know who’s going to win while you’re playing it, only at the end which is good.

I think my friends would like to play this game.

I give it one thumb up out of two.