Hiss! (Hamleys Snakes and Ladders)

Member Name: frankie1984

Product:	Hamleys Snakes and Ladders
Date:	18/01/09 (107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to play

Disadvantages: Can get boring quickly

I used to love playing board games when I was younger and always had lots of different games. When I moved into my own home I didn't take any with me and so stopped playing board games as often. It was only when thinking how myself and my hubby had both neither played any good old fashioned board games for quite some years that we decided to buy some games to have in the house. We have now ended up with quite a few games in our cupboard. One of them was this, which is probably one of the most well know classic games ever!



The game:
I am sure everybody knows what snakes and ladders is but, I shall explain just in case! The game can be played by as many players as you want really but, you tend to find most of the bought games have pieces for 4 players at a time. The game board consists of a square board which has 100 small squares printed on it. The squares tend to be different colours and more often than not they consist of red, blue, yellow and green. The board also then has printed on it pictures of snakes and ladders which run from random squares to another. The aim of the game is to be the first person to reach the 100th square by players taking it in turns to roll a dice number 1-6. However if a player lands on a square that has the bottom of a ladder on it they can move 'up' the ladder to where the ladder ends. If however, they land on a snake they then have to go 'down' the snake to where the bottom of the snake is.



The pieces:
The pieces are pretty simple and consist of just 4 plastic coloured flat discs. As I said they provide 4 in the box but, if you really wanted to have more players you can always use small items of your choice for them to move around the board.



Playability:
The game is quite fun in my opinion as it is all down to luck when playing - you cannot determine what the dice will roll for each player and so this means that it can get quite heated between players when the continually land on snakes and end up back down at the bottom of the board! Of course there is only so much of snakes and ladders that you can play as it is geared more towards children to help them with numbers, colours and to also help them to learn how to play as a group and to interact with others. I think it is a classic game but, played too much in one go soon gets boring.



Price:
The board game is pretty inexpensive - I bought mine from Amazon at a cost of £4.99 - I managed to get free delivery because I was purchasing a few other items at the same time so it worked out quite well. It depends where you purchase the game from and also which manufacturer it is made by as to what price it will be. I would advise looking around before buying as there is no point spending a lot of money on a simple game like this.



Overall opinion:
Snakes and ladders is such a simple game yet can provide a good amount of entertainment. It is probably much more fun for children to play but, adults can also enjoy it too. For the low price that I paid, we have certainly got our money's worth from the amount of time we have played it. I would recommend every household to own this game as it will pass some hours away where boredom strikes which is especially useful when a lack of money stops you from being able to partake in more expensive hobbies!

Summary: A classic board game