Rainy Day Board Games–Group Style Non Electronic Fun

USAopoly sent us two games to review – Wonky: The Crazy Cubes Card Game and
Tapple: Fast Word Fun for Everyone.

We’ll start with Tapple –

Tapple starts by putting in two double A batteries into the back. There is a deck of cards that has four sets of words on them. The idea is to take a phrase – like “Pizza Toppings” or “Ice Cream Flavors”, and hit the red button. This starts the timer. You have a few seconds to yell out Mushrooms or Cherry, press down the M or the C, and then press the red button for the next person’s turn. If you can’t come up with an idea by the time the buzzer goes off, the round is over.

Strangely enough, with a group of teen boys, Car Parts was the first one that we got al of the alphabet letters pushed down. Ha.

I like that there is a storage spot on the back of the game to hold the cards, The little Blue Door goes in, and keeps them secure. You don’t need an extra holder. It is about the size of a regular size Frisbee.

The yellow piece resets the letters when you manually slide it around. I’m pretty sure they don’t read my reviews –but just in case I won’t name names – but a certain group of 14-17 year olds seemed to be thrilled with the mechanics of the game more than the playing of it. I had to put my foot down and say – That’s Enough!!!! Not my kids. Um, I heard – from other reviewers – ha.

I think this would be a great ice breaker game for youth groups. It is a quick round, you could play several. If you have a large co-op or such, you might even get two or three and play in rounds. For some of the phrases, it would seem that the older players would have an advantage. This would give an upper hand to a person with more experience and a wide vocabulary – To keep the game fun and light hearted, I wouldn’t make kids use it to practice their SAT word lists.

It is light hearted. We’ve played several rounds this month, 4-5 even today, when I said I just needed to take photos, they kept playing.

Which brings me to their favorite game – Wonky: The Crazy Cubes Card Game .

The idea is simple. Pass out 7 cards to each player. The card tells you what moves you may make. Readers and non readers can figure out the cards.

You pick a card from your hand, select that size block (three sizes three colors, three of each color, nine total) . Using one hand, stack the block, without using your block or hand to tug or rearrange those blocks below. if you tower can stand for 3 seconds after you remove your fingers, you’ve made your turn. If not, you pull out 3 cards from the pile.

Wow you say. Build a single tower. Is this a preschool game? Don’t snicker. These blocks are Wonky. All Some of the sides are flat, some rounded. There isn’t a way to really put it down and be stable. They are not square. You have to balance even the larger blocks as you can see on the right above. There is strategy, should you put on a block that stays put, but you know your next player will not be able to build on it, making the tower fall, forcing him to add three cards to his hand?

“Let’s play that again.” Each time we’ve played this – that’s the phrase I’ve heard. From teens. There isn’t a lot of chatter needed, nor a ton of thought. I think this would be fun at a coffee shop, you can see from the photos above all the pieces fit in a cute drawstring bag. Chat, Build, Giggle, Chat.

These were the cards I had – I kept loosing, my son kept building towers I couldn’t build on during my turn. First person to be rid of all of their cards is the winner.

I am impressed with the quality of these games. Simple – but strategic using word play, building skills through play, a perfect fun topping to a homeschool day in the books. Physically great quality. I saw quite a few of their other games in the little insert and we’ll be looking towards those for holiday gifts.

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We used these games with teens from ages 14-18. Everyone enjoyed them. The crew used these games with all different ages. Click below to see how other families incorporated it into their homeschool family days!