While walking through a well-known department store recently my eye was attracted to a stack of WobBally games (target age 5+). I wasn't there to buy a game, and I don't even have any regular contact with under 18s, but somehow I never grew out of being attracted to brightly coloured things and as a result I ended up purchasing WobBally, a very brightly coloured game that is a little like Jenga but with plastic balls rather than wooden blocks.

On getting it home my other half looked dubiously at it. "You brought it because its bright, didn't you?" he accused. "No" I replied unconvincingly "I got it because it looks fun... you liked jenga in the past." He looked at me with a hint of despair then decided that he'd get this over with quickly.

We opened the box and set about arranging the 98 balls in layers with plastic discs between them until we had a circular tower of balls (time taken: around 5 minutes). We skipped the instructions, assuming (correctly) that you played by rolling the dice then knocking out a ball of the colour indicated using the little plastic poking stick. He went first and expertly prodded a ball out of place. I went next and promptly destroyed the tower's structural integrity, resulting in a cascade of balls everywhere. And I mean everywhere. We had used the plastic barrier provided with the game to prevent this happening, but it was rather flimsey and in short was about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. Once we had located the majority of the balls (time taken: 20 minutes) we reassembled the tower (time taken: another 5 minutes) then played again, with similar results (gameplay time: 3 minutes.) At this point even though all the balls were colourful they lost their appeal and the game was returned to its box to languish in disgrace for a while.

Then we had to visit my parents, and remembering my father suffers from the same affliction to bright objects as myself I thought WobBally deserved a chance to redeem itself. This time even my other half failed to knock out a ball without the tower collapsing, a situation he attributed to my parent's table not being quite flat.

We left the game with my parents and they reported subsequently enjoying successful games on a flatter surface and reported that it kept them and their middle-aged 'gang' amused while they drank wine. However, despite this eventual positive feedback I don't feel I can recommend this game - there seemed to be far too much setting up time, too much potential for loosing bits and not enough play time.