Fun but flawed! (Chalenj!)

Member Name: crazyminx

Product:	Chalenj!
Date:	26/06/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can be very funny, varied

Disadvantages: Potentially dangerous and destructive, not well thought out for different ages to play together

I love board games, and particularly enjoy Cranium, so when I got the chance to try this game by the same company I was really excited.

When you open up the game, you find an array of exciting bits and pieces, including two plastic floor mats, a soft ball and a cardboard trophy! I soon realised this was not going to be your average game.

Chalenj is quite simple to get the hang of, but quite tricky to explain. To put it as simply as possible, each player moves around the board and whenever they land on a place, has to pick a card. The card will give them a type of challenge, and providing it's not a personal challenge which can only be completed by that player, then the other players in the game get to bid against each other to see who can do the challenge the best/quickest/the most times. The player who bids the highest has to then do the challenge. If they win, they gain control of the dice and it becomes their turn.

The challenges are extremely varied, ranging from turning around on the spot, to naming song titles with certain words in them, to throwing the ball agains the ceiling. A lot of these challenges are great fun and will have people laughing a lot. The problem is that a lot of them are also badly thought out. Some are potentially destructive if done indoors, some are potentially dangerous (particularly those which involve jumping on the very slippery plastic mats), and many are only able to be done by kids. Can you imagine many grannys doing forward rolls around the room? But if granny receives a personal challenge involving forward rolls, she would have to do so.

The concept of this game is great: a fun family game which will keep the kids active and entertained. But in practise some parts of it just don't make sense in a family environment. This either needs to be played by a very young, active family, or by kids alone. If it is played by children alone though, I would strongly recommend adult supervision as otherwise you may find numerous broken items in your living room, and children with lots of bruises!

This game has an RRP of £24.99 but you can currently buy it on Amazon.co.uk for just £10.99. I think this represents fantastic value for money.

Summary: Worth buying