Tiddledy Wink Wink to Jaques of London – the oldest games company in the world!

Disclosure. This post is a review of products I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Regular followers of my blog may have seen when I featured the family fun we had playing Chinese Checkers and Shut The Box about 6 weeks ago. So I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to review another two products for free from Jaques of London, .

Their wooden toys all look excellent for younger children and some are suitable for babies. And it is excellent that they are made from 100% sustainably sourced wood. However as the boys are both in double figures now, I have chosen two traditional classic games – a Draughts Set and Tiddlywinks.

Once again very fast dispatch and beautifully presented, although still encased with the needless layer of single use plastic. I did highlight this to Jaques following my previou post and they have passed my comments onto their Product development team. It is something that they are looking into changing for the future of being a sustainable business.

I was very interested to read that Tiddlywinks was a Jaques invention back in the 1800s, patented under the name Tiddledy Winks. Those who have more than a passing interest can read all about the history and official tournaments on the Tiddly Winks Association website. Yes you read that right – the game has its own Association. Who would have thought that this game, which I had always imagined to just be a fun children’s pastime, is actually as strategic as the likes of chess?

The version of Tiddlywinks that I received is the travel edition, so it didn’t include a playing mat, but no problem, we just mapped out an area on the carpet with the Jaques ribbons. Good bit of thinking that. No idea if it was the correct size though, so might be worth specifying on the instructions. However don’t worry, for the purists amongst you, they also sell a full version including a baize mat. Plus bonus points – the full edition has been manufactured to the original 1800s Jaques design which looks amazing.

I was wondering what the winks would be made of, as I’ve only ever seen plastic tiddly winks. However these are also plastic which was a slight disappointment. Also the instruction sheet needs some proof-reading, since it is inconsistent in regards to the number of tiddly winks, as to whether each person plays with 4 or 6. But we didn’t have a choice, as only 4 were included apart from lucky red who got 5.

As we read the rules, we did laugh over some of the terminology. The large winks are called squidgers which makes sense, but if your wink lands on top of another wink, the one on top is squopping and the one underneath has been squopped. Where did they come with those words? However my son managed to do something which hadn’t been defined. He got a wink trapped under the pot. Who can come up with an equally silly name to define that?

We found Tiddlywinks was a fun game to play, although I couldn’t seem to get the knack, as almost every time, my wink ended up outside the playing zone, so I kept forfeiting my next turn. I didn’t manage to actually pot any winks. We left the pot open, so we effectively had 2 chances at potting, but even so nobody got all 4 potted in the time limit. 2 was the best, so we definitely need more practice. We cetainly won’t be entering any tournaments anytime soon. Not sure whether the pot should have been left open or closed, but if we had closed it, none of us would have potted, as all winks potted were in the larger lower pot.

Tiddlywinks can be either played as 2 teams of 2 or upto 4 individuals. A great game for all the family apart from very young children due to the risk of swallowing small pieces. Perhaps Jaques could consider producing a version with giant winks as the hand coordination element would be good for young children.

Moving on to the second game. The solid wooden draughts board looks very elegant but I am in two minds as regards the quality of the pieces. This is because one piece doesn’t look as attractive as all the others. So on the one hand I am pleased since they are hand-crafted but on the other hand I want them to look perfect as a set. Sorry am I being too greedy?

I don’t think I’ve played draughts since childhood, but the instructions were clear to follow. However I think I should have chosen to play my first game against one of the boys rather than my husband as he remembered the rules no problem and absolutely whooped me in a very short time, crowning 3 of his pieces. A great strategic game.

Both games are very good value for money, for excellent high quality products which should last a lifetime. Suitable for children or adults. Buy for yourself or as gifts. And lots of screen-free fun family time together.

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed I got a surprise bonus in the draughts. A prize code. So keep your eyes peeled when you order, in case you get extra lucky too!

Jaques of London have an amazing heritage. They are a long-established games, toys and sports manufacturer spanning 8 generations of the Jaques family back to 1795. Their products are still timber-based today. And not only do they make them, they have been inventing games and toys too. With my interest in genealogy, it was fascinating to read the family history of the oldest games company and sports manufacturer in the world.

I certainly recommend you have a look round their website. They have some great special offers. So many fabulous eco-friendly plastic-free fun toys, games and sports equipment. Plus you can get 15% off if you sign up to their newsletter. And they currently have a promotion where some lucky shoppers will win their money back.

So what is your favourite game?

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Sustainably made games and toys from Jaques of London – the oldest games company in the world!

Disclosure. This post is a review of products I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

When Rosey from Jaques of London asked me if I would do a Christmas feature, I took a look at their website and was instantly drawn to their heritage. They are a long-established games, toys and sports manufacturer spanning 8 generations of the Jaques family back to 1795. It was refreshing to read that their products are still timber-based today. And not only do they make them, they have been inventing games and toys too. With my interest in genealogy, it was fascinating to read the family history of the oldest games company and sports manufacturer in the world.

I had a good browse round their website and saw that they sell toys suitable for babies upwards, family games and sports equipment like croquet. Spoilt for choice, I selected a couple of traditional classic games – Chinese Checkers and Shut The Box Game which they sent me free to review.

Dispatch was very fast and both games were beautifully presented with reproduction tissue paper and personalised cards from the team members who had hand wrapped them. You could tell a lot of care and thought had gone into that. They immediately made me think of “Brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favourite things” from The Sound of Music. You won’t need to wrap these, they are ready to go under the Christmas tree. However the one thing that was definitely surplus to requirement was the single use plastic encasing each box, as they were already doubly secured with an attractive ribbon.

But since it is obvious that sustainability is something that is key to this company with its environmentally friendly wooden products and brown boxes in preference to shiny ones, hopefully the single use plastic is already on their agenda to remove. I didn’t manage to find a sustainability page on their website, but did come across an interesting article on their blog about What Wood is Safe for Children’s Toys.

So onto the products themselves. I was delighted to spot Shut The Box Game in their range. This is a game that I originally wanted to buy for son1 back in 2013 but couldn’t find it stocked anywhere. He had enjoyed playing it multiple times whilst in hospital with leukaemia. A great distraction for him at the time and educational too.

This dice game can be played by any number of players, even just one and is good for arithmetic skills. This is an attractive wooden framed version with a baize lining. Numbers go upto 12, but they sell various versions including one with numbers upto 9 and a travel edition.

The other game I chose was Chinese Checkers and when it arrived, I discovered a bonus. Chinese Checkers on one side and flip it over for a game of Go Bang. All the pieces of this edition have been beautifully hand carved.

Chinese Checkers is a traditional board game for 2, 3, 4 or 6 players. Each player chooses a peg colour and a starting point of the star. The objective of this game is to be the first to get all 10 of your pegs to the opposite star point. Jumping is a key feature of the rules and depending on the position of the pieces, we sometimes got lucky travelling right across the board in one move with a series of jumps.

Meanwhile Go Bang is a strategy game of territorial capture for 2 players.

All the games came with comprehensive detailed instructions. And very good value for money for excellent high quality products which should last a lifetime. These would both be great for Christmas gifts.

So I certainly recommend you have a look round their website. They currently have some great special offers. So many fabulous eco-friendly plastic-free fun toys, games and sports equipment. Plus you can get 15% off if you sign up to their newsletter.

Finally a random fact for the day, the origin of Chinese Checkers is in Germany and not China, so why do they call it Chinese Checkers?

I’d love to hear your favourite game or idea for inventing a new game.

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Foul Play is afoot After Dark – review and giveaway

Disclosure. This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

There seems to have been a trend in my recent posts of what we’ve been doing for entertainment during lockdown, so games have been interspersed amongst my many book reviews. We’ve also been digging the jigsaws out of the cupboard, but they are more of a long term project that we just do a few pieces at a time. This is the especially the case with the 2000 piece one we’re working on at the moment, which is very difficult with lots of sky, water and rock.

But today I’m sticking with the game theme, as we have received another game free to review. This time it is Foul Play, The Manor House Murder Mystery Card Game from After Dark. Now regular followers of my blog will know that I love to read a good murder mystery story, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned how much I enjoy seeing a murder mystery on stage or being involved in a murder mystery game. Whether it is solving or actually being the murderer, which I’ve done twice. The first occasion was at a party but the second time, one of the amdram groups that I used to belong to, had been booked as the entertainment for a murder mystery night. Yes people actually paid to try and guess and if I recall, none of them worked out that I was indeed the culprit. And guess how many versions of Cluedo we have here, not one, not two, not three but four. We have the original version, Super Cluedo, Harry Potter and Doctor Who versions.

Murder Mystery events are the bread and butter business for After Dark and of course the pandemic has kept actors out of work for the time being, although they do hope to be back performing soon. But they extended their business model to come up with the Foul Play card game.

Dispatch was super speedy and I was very pleased to see how small the box was, just the size of a pack of playing cards. The boys have so many games that rattle around in big empty boxes, that we are almost running out of shelf space. But as the cards fitted so snugly in their box, I really didn’t see the need for the plastic around the cards inside. Hopefully they will reconsider that.

This is a game for 2-5 players and is suitable for age 8+. It is set in Edwardian England and the Lord of the Manor is dead. You have to work out which suspect killed him. There are two versions of the game, one where you play as Good Cop and the other as Bad Cop.

We tried the Good Cop version first, where you need to uncover the three pieces of evidence to track down the killer. My youngest got really into the swing of things by having several magnifying glasses as props and writing his suspicions and clues in a notebook. Although other players along with the fish seemed to be his prime suspects rather than those on the cards. The fish being the Red Herring of course! And his detective bear joined in the fun too.

However props and notebooks are just window dressing for extra fun. All that is needed is the Foul Play deck of cards. But beware of other players stealing your cards, as I became a target. The boys kindly left me with one card rather than eliminating me from the game, so I had to steal a card back in order to have enough cards to revisit the crime scene.

The next day we played again but as Bad Cops this time. With 15 pieces of evidence in play, we found this to be a much faster game, as you’re trying to pin the crime on any suspect. Although Good Cop would have been quicker if my son had realised that watches didn’t have to be worn on wrists, He had the killer card, but swapped it at the crime scene.

Until you have played the game a few times and become more familiar with the suspects, I did initially feel one of the pieces of evidence was slightly unfair. It said the killer is not related to any other suspect. I subsequently discovered that there are some extra downloadable resources on the website, so we could have printed a full list of suspects. And read a handy synopsis on each suspect, although the formatting needs to be improved to prevent text wrapping over other text.

The instructions were very comprehensive. The only things we felt unsure of were whether to shuffle the discard pile before restarting it again as the Evidence Locker, and should both players get to pick a card when swapping on Fair Play or only the player who played the card.

As per all of my game reviews during the pandemic, we didn’t just limit it to playing in out household, we also tried it out over Zoom, which worked fine too. Great for mental health and wellbeing, to be able to involve those that the pandemic has forced into a lonely isolated lifestyle.

Foul Play currently retails at £8.95. Excellent value in my opinion and so much fun. The official case file reference for solving this crime is #foulplaygame and I’m delighted to see that a second game Once Upon A Crime will soon be hitting the shelves. Any suggestions for what other versions you would like to see?

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition, courtesy of After Dark to giveaway a Foul Play card game to one lucky winner!

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear your favourite game or idea for a new game.

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Game Off Celebrities – a Head to Head Battle – review and giveaway

Disclosure. This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

We love playing games in our household, but during this winter lockdown, I’ve frequently been heard calling out “Shall we play a game?” It helps give the boys a break from their screens, which they would be reluctant to do otherwise, when most of the activities they enjoy are off limits. And although we have our favourites that we play again and again, we really like trying something new. So I was delighted to be offered the chance to try out the new Celebrities version of Game Off for free.

Gosh I’ve never compared games to buses before but it had been a while since I’d reviewed a game and now this is the second one our family have put to the test in a matter of weeks!

Dispatch was very quick and it was good to see how small the box was. No wasted empty space in a large box. A win win all round as it will take up less space on the shelf, plus portable too, which will be a bonus once we can finally start going on holidays again. But putting on my “Reduce Plastic Pollution” hat, did it really need two layers of plastic, one round the box and then a second one inside round the pack of cards. Ideally I would like to see none, but can understand the need for some method of sealing the new product. Perhaps something the company can review before their next production run.

Moving onto the game itself, I loved the chatty friendly style that the instructions are written in, with a cheeky way of deciding who goes first. It says that it is suitable for ages 8-118. We joked here about having to stop playing when we reach 119. Of course we’re a long long way off that upper age limit, so with technology advances, who knows what humans life span may be in the future.

There are five types of cards – Body, Mind, Skill, Courage and Luck. The object of the game is to be the first person to collect one of each category. You win the cards via head-to-head battles with the other players acting as judges, so it needs a minimum of 3 players.

So each card describes a challenge based on a named celebrity, who range from current right back into the depths of history like Pythagoras. Some of the challenges are verbal, others require pen and paper and a few you need to improvise with props. It certainly makes it funny being the judges and the rules have cleverly thought out what to do in a draw scenario.

There is an additional rule which permits players to swap three of one type of card for another. This could prove useful in changing the dynamics of the game.

As we played, one thing became quite apparent quickly. Not everyone had necessarily heard of all the “famous” people or fully understood the particular challenge. For instance, my youngest son could not get the concept of “sharpest cheekbones” for a Keira Knightley Off. This did tend to take the edge off the boys enjoyment of the game somewhat. I haven’t played any of the other versions of Game Off, but I’m sure the Family version would have suited them both much better, although this Celebrities one does suggest from age 8 up, so should have been fine. I did think this would work excellently as a party game for adults though once parties are back on the agenda.

We certainly had lots of giggles with it and some ideas were very tongue in cheek. All us judges abstained when the boys went head to head in a Greta Thunberg Off. We were supposed to be voting on which of their letters would make the world a better place. Neither would and son1 was advocating to destroy the world entirely!

Afterwards the boys took a look at a few more of the cards, and I have to say it would be very hard for the games designers to guess which “famous” people to include for older children. For instance I was very surprised when I realised that neither of them had heard of Nelson! He is obviously not on the history school curriculum these days. But my youngest is an avid reader of history genre books and still hadn’t come across him. Yes really!! Maybe a testing panel of say age 8-16 would be useful in determining which “famous” people to include or exclude.

And we didn’t just limit it to playing in out household, we also tried it out over Zoom. Great for mental health and wellbeing, to be able to involve those that lockdown has forced into a lonely isolated lifestyle. We did have to adapt slightly, so that someone else rolled for him, as this was the first time any of us had ever seen a Left / Right dice, so obviously he didn’t have one of those. There were some of the challenges that wouldn’t have really worked remotely, but luckily those didn’t come up for him, but if they had it wouldn’t have been a problem, as we could have just redrawn a different challenge card.

According to the website, there are several other versions of Game Off. The original family version is suitable from age 3 up, then there is the sequel, Game Off 2 suitable from age 5 up plus an 18+ adult only version, so something for everyone. Plus this Celebrities version also comes in Spanish and German editions.

Any suggestions for what other versions you would like to see?

Game Off Celebrities currently retails at £12.99 and is sold via Amazon. Good value in my opinion and plenty of fun. I love its hashtag #EverythingIsAGame

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition, courtesy of Captain Fats to giveaway a Game Off Celebrities to not one, not two, but three lucky winners!

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear your favourite game or idea for a new game.

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Last night I had 20 Dreams to giveaway …

Disclosure. This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Games have always been something we have enjoyed in our family, but during this winter lockdown we have been playing even more, whilst it is too cold to spend much time in the garden. So I was very pleased to be offered the chance to try out the brand new 20 Dreams game for free.

20 Dreams, a creative storytelling card game was ‘dreamt’ up by Karen Stallard, an Arts Psychotherapist. It focuses on using the more emotional side of your brain, rather than logic. Then launched as a small business venture with a successful Kickstarter campaign last summer.

Dispatch was quick and I was glad to see the care that had been taken to ensure the product was plastic free, with just a couple of paper strips to secure the cards. Every little helps to try to reduce plastic pollution. Plus a nice small box size was a bonus too, as not everyone has space to store many large games.

In fact, even the box gets used during the game as the ‘penalty box’ for incorrect guesses. Great innovative use of the box.

The game has different variants depending on how many people are playing. So there is a 2 player cooperative game, working together to collect points or a 3-6 player competitive game or a team version. So far we’ve tried playing it with 4 and 5 players, including over Zoom.

You take it in turns to tell a dream which includes the 3 picture cards and expresses the emotion on your white card. The other players then have to guess which emotion it is from their own coloured pack. Get it right and the dream teller earns points, but get it wrong and the penalties start stacking up!

The rules suggest a certain number of rounds depending on the number of players. Well son2 insisted we continue playing until all the emotion cards ran out as he was enjoying it so much, so you can adapt your own variations too.

As mentioned above, we did also try it out over Zoom. Great for mental health and wellbeing, to be able to involve those that lockdown has forced into a lonely isolated lifestyle. Ideally this would be best with a game set each or at least to have given a player pack to the person playing remotely. However we didn’t have this opportunity so our workaround was for him to write down the list of 20 emotions and cross them out once played.

I have to say son1’s emotions were impossible to guess. Every dream he told in a flat monotone, with barely any story around the 3 pictures. Very hard to work out what he was feeling so I think I wrongly guessed “calm” every time for him, until someone else played that emotion card. Meanwhile he seemed to deliberately guess almost the most opposite emotion possible for the rest of us. I’m not sure if it was tactical play on his part, but it meant all his blue cards ended up in the penalty box. And for the final scores, we all were negative, although son2 was the winner being least negative points. But everyone had great fun, even son1. We were in fits of giggles over how hilarious some of the stories were.

The dream teller is supposed to start each dream saying “Last night I had a dream” and end it by saying “and I woke up feeling …?” Well son2 even involved his bear by wearing the outer box showing those phrases.

The box indicates that this is the 2020 classic pop art edition and their online shop also says 1st edition, so looks like there will be more releases to look forward to. Any suggestions for what other versions you would like to see?

I believe that our family are all more analytical than creative, so I would be very interested to play this with a different group of people too, as I’m sure the dynamics of the game will be quite different. And the 20 Dreams website says that it can also be used as an educational tool by parents, teachers or therapists, with plenty of resources, tools and ideas detailed.

The game is aimed at age 12+ but on the website, they suggest that it can be adapted for younger or neurodiverse players by removing the more difficult emotions to make the game shorter and more accessible.

The only thing that did slightly surprise me was that the box says ‘Made in China’. I had just assumed that as a small start-up business, who had taken the effort to help protect the environment by avoiding single-use plastic, that the product would have had a lower carbon footprint and supported other local industry if made in the UK.

20 Dreams currently retails at £14.99. Great value in my opinion. I can certainly highly recommend this game, which has been very well thought out. Fun for all the family across the generations.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway a 20 Dreams game to one lucky winner. What a fun prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear your idea for a new game.

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Jibbergiggle game including giveaway

A rainy day in the long school summer holiday and what better way to spend it than trying out our latest free game Jibbergiggle from Gamely. We have had great fun playing their other three games, so we were certainly looking forward to testing this one out too.

Also just like the other three games, Randomise, Soundiculous and The Pretender, it comes in a nice small box, the size of two decks of playing cards. This has always been a plus point for me, as the boys’ possessions seem to be gradually taking over the rest of the house. And I’m even more focussed on minimal packaging this year, so I would add that perhaps they could lose a layer of cellophane to reduce waste. Currently the cards are wrapped in cellophane and then the external box is wrapped again.

Moving onto the game itself, the boys were delighted by the rule of how to choose who plays first, this being the player with the longest tongue. Son1 was voted the winner on this count, but who would become the ultimate Jibbergiggle champion.

Once the rules are mastered, it is fairly simple to play but lots of fun. 9 possible scenario cards are laid out, the player then looks at their nonsense sound card and secretly chooses which scenario they wish to perform. But you have to sit on your hands and only perform the scenario using your sound and facial expressions. For example cast a spell using only the phrase “piggle wiggle”. The other players try to guess, but have to shout Jibbergiggle before making their guess. We had quite a few instances initially where the Jibbergiggle shout was forgotten allowing another player an opportunity.

I do have one question for clarification though. We were playing as a 3 person game and both boys guessed wrongly for one of my scenarios, so they were out of the round. We misinterpreted this as just out of the turn and it was only when I re-read the rules that I realised it should have been out of the round. Doe that mean since I was the only one left, with nobody remaining to guess, that we should have discarded the remaining round 1 cards and moved onto round 2?

And as you can see from the photo below, hands did not remain sat upon for long.

Our game went to a tiebreak between son1 and son2, with me trailing in third place. My reactions just weren’t quick enough.

The rules indicate that it is for 3-8 players and suitable for age 8+, so good for a party. What a lot of fun for a load of nonsense.

Jibbergiggle currently retails at £12.99 on Amazon and John Lewis. Great value in my opinion. I can certainly highly recommend this game.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway a Jibbergiggle game to one lucky winner. What a fun prize. Open worldwide.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear your idea for a new game.

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Disclosure. This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Soundiculous game including giveaway

Time for a family game and once again we have received a free product from Gamely. Having really enjoyed playing their other two games, we were looking forward to some fun.

I was very pleased to see that just like the other two games, Randomise and The Pretender, it comes in a nice small box, the size of two decks of playing cards. Always a plus point for me, as the boys’ possessions seem to be gradually taking over the rest of the house.

The game gets its name Soundiculous from the ridiculous sounds you have to make for the other players to guess. You are only permitted to make sounds, no words, hints or actions. The cards range from easy, through medium to hard, with potential scoring of 1, 2 or 3 points accordingly.

So yes I can happily make the sound of a train, but how am I going to convey the sound of a tractor, to distinguish it from any other vehicle. Luckily you are permitted to nod, if someone makes a close guess. And if you get stuck, you can try associated sounds, although the guessers can end up diving down a false trail, as I found when swapping from bird sounds to oinking for a pigeon.

The rules suggest that it is for 3-10 players and suitable for age 8+, with the aim to get the most points. When someone shouts the correct answer, both of you score but if at least half the guessers give up, your turn ends. So plenty of strategy, regarding whether to opt for easy, medium or hard. We certainly had loads of fun playing this game.

We’re out of shot in this video, to convey how it is the sounds that are key to this game. You’re even supposed to sit on your hands whilst playing, to avoid making gestures.

Soundiculous currently retails at £11.99 on Amazon and John Lewis. Great value in my opinion, especially if you are starting to think about stocking fillers. I highly recommend this game.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway a Soundiculous game to one lucky winner. What a fun prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear your idea for a new game.

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Disclosure. This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Who is The Pretender plus giveaway?

We love playing games together as a family, so were delighted to be offered the chance to review a new game The Pretender for free. This is manufactured by Gamely who also came up with Randomise that we reviewed a couple of years ago.

Just like Randomise, this is a nice compact size, which always gets the thumbs up for me. The boys possessions are overflowing the storage space in our house, which is not helped by most games coming in half empty, huge boxes.

This is a game of mini charades, bluffing and suspicion. Basically one player is the Pretender and the aim of the game is for the other players to discover who the Pretender is, whilst the Pretender must fake their way through the game, escaping detection and trying to work out what on earth everyone else is miming!

The rules suggest that it is for 4-6 players and suitable for age 12+, but son2 at a younger age was in his element playing this, even if he didn’t quite know what a word meant. And we found that you definitely do need at least 4 players, 3 wouldn’t really be enough, particularly as we soon twigged  that whoever chose the item number for a round wasn’t the Pretender.

After the charades, come the accusations. I seemed to get accused a lot more times than when I actually was the Pretender, so looks like I need to brush up on my charades skills. Most embarrassingly, when I was miming knitting, as I’m the only one of us who actually knows how to knit. And jaws dropped when at least a couple of times, they thought they had caught me out, but I escaped by successfully identifying the item.

There are 10 items in each category and 36 different categories in total, 2 categories per card so it will continue to feel fresh and new after many games have been played. Scoring is optional, so we didn’t bother.

The Pretender game currently retails at £11.99 on Amazon and John Lewis. Very good value in my opinion for all the fun we had. I can highly recommend this game. We’ve now got our eye out for the other new game from Gamely, which is Soundiculous.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway The Pretender game to one lucky winner. What a fun prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear your idea for a new game.

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Disclosure. This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Tea and Biscuits Bingo giveaway

Did you know that this month over 100 years ago the Oreo biscuit went on sale in American shops. In the USA the Oreo is the no.1 biscuit and it is rapidly becoming more popular in the UK. Our all time UK favourites, according to biscuit studies, are the bourbon, the chocolate digestive and the custard cream. Those are 3 of the favourites in our household, so we were very pleased to receive a large free box of Family Circle Biscuits including all three, along with 4 boxes of Twinings English Breakfast tea and a Family Bingo game.

It’s always nice to take some time out for tea and biscuits in this rainy, cold British weather. And we had great fun playing bingo, with son2 being the overall winner.

I’m hosting a giveaway to win a vintage inspired prize bundle which consists of:

· A box of Traditional English Breakfast tea from Twinings
· A large box of the nation’s favourite biscuits from Family Circle
· A family game of bingo

These prizes are supplied by http://bingo.paddypower.com

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear what you like to do indoors on a cold rainy day or your favourite type of biscuit?

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Disclosure.  This post mentions products I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Capture the Flag

Disclosure. This post mentions a book that I will be sent for free. All opinions are my own.

We had great fun last weekend playing “Capture The Flag”. This is an outdoor team game based on the game played at Camp Half-Blood in “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief “by Rick Riordan. Son1 has played this game at school previously although with different rules. However it was totally new to son2, so before we started, he read out what we needed to do.

Ideally you need 8 or more people divided into two teams. We had to make do with the 4 of us, topped up with cuddly toys. You also need 2 flags and a big open space divided into 2 territories. The object of the game is to capture the opposing team’s flag, but if you are tagged in the opposition’s territory, you get put in their prison and can only be freed by a teammate tagging you. Quite challenging with our limited numbers.

Son2 came up with the additional idea of team names so the boys team was the Awesome Ozzies and mum and dad’s team was the Poseidon Pirates.

We positioned our flags in secret locations within our territory and then the game began. Dad was quickly captured and sent to the boys’ trampoline prison. Mum did manage to rescue him once but he soon ended up back there again and this time son2 was on patrol.

Meanwhile mum had guessed that son1 was guarding the area where their flag was hidden, but every time she tried to sneak up for a look, she was foiled by the gravel crunching underfoot. The boys were more concerned with guarding Dad and their own flag than coming to search our territory apart from tiny border taunts. This was looking like stalemate with Mum getting exhausted from running back and forth numerous times between the front garden where son1 was and the back garden where son2 and an imprisoned Dad were.

So Mum valiantly succeeded in rescuing Dad, then drawing son2 to tag her instead leaving Dad free to run. Actually a very welcome rest for a tired Mum. Within 2 minutes, Dad had done a deal and son1 returned triumphantly with both flags.

#WeCapturedTheFlag

The Percy Jackson series of books are written by Rick Riordan and published by Puffin. The latest book in the series is The Hidden Oracle which is book1 of The Trials of Apollo and it is available on Amazon, currently priced at £6.49 in hardback compared to an RRP of £12.99. It is also available in Kindle format. Son1 is looking forward to receiving a free copy of this Percy Jackson book.

How about trying out a game of Capture The Flag yourself or some of the fun activities on the website of the author Rick Riordan.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway a copy of The Trials of Apollo – The Hidden Oracle and a Capture The Flag t-shirt to 1 lucky winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear about your child’s favourite books or outdoor games.

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