Great family fun! (Trends WobBally Game)

Member Name: Smallvillenews

Product:	Trends WobBally Game
Date:	27/01/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Adaptable game play for younger players

Disadvantages: Flimsy bumber provided and set up time after each game.

I have 4 children and as a family we have had a real "ball" playing this game.

It is not an educational toy in an academic sense, but it is good for instilling concentration and fine motor skills, as you have to very carefully tap the balls out of the tower levels into the centre of the tower, being very careful not to knock it over. Obviously the less balls there are on each level, the more unstable the tower becomes and it becomes a bigger challenge, so tactical playing comes into it for the older children. My 5 year old did not really understand the game concept, but just loved knocking the balls out and laughed his socks off... which is worth a lot in itself.

A couple of annoyances, because it needs a level flat surface, like a table, to play it on, when it does topple over the balls tend to roll everywhere, including off the table and under whatever furniture you have... add wood or linoleum flooring to that and you end up losing the balls everywhere as they roll even further accross the floor. What I did to stop this was to roll towels and place them around the edge of the table, like bumpers, so that when the tower fell over, they stopped the balls rolling off the table. Although the game includes a flimsy plastic bumper, I think the game could be improved by providing some sort of sturdy plastic bumper sections instead to place around the playing area, as the flimsy thing provided is useless and although towels work well it isn't very practical for us mums! Also, it can be a pain having to set it all up again after every game, especially if you put one too many balls on a level, as you can't reach in easily to get the balls out and you have to tip them all out and start again, so it can be quite time consuming!

That said, overall, this game provides numerous hours of fun and laughter and can be played by up to 6 people for a good game, or more for shorter games. It has a few different ways to play, either by rolling the colour dice only and knocking out a ball of that colour, or rolling the number dice and knocking out that many balls, or a combination of both the colour and number dice, so it is quite a versatile game to adapt for younger and older players alike. It is great fun for all the family at a very reasonable price!

Summary: Good fun for all!