As a family, we are quite competitive with one another. A few years ago, the husband and I spent a whole night deciding which sport which one of us were better at. If you’re interested: I’m best at skiing and netball, he does confess I am quite a good swimmer as well. These traits have been passed to the kids, and they are rapidly taking over us at sports (please don’t mention Parkrun, my husband still can’t bear it that the ‘family fastest runner’ title has been lost to the tween). Therefore, we love the even battleground of a good board game.
Ahead of Pork Farm’s annual National Board Games Championships (8 – 14 th May) we were sent the Hasbro game, Taboo to give it a whirl, and see if would make our games night roster.
I’ll start by saying I have a 9 and 11 year old, and the recommended age for Taboo is 13+. However, the kids quickly understood the rules, and as both have a good vocabulary, they found the game easy to play.
The premise is to get your team member to guess the word on the card from your description, but you can’t mention any of the others words also on the card. For instance, the word might be space but you can’t mention stars, planets, rocket etc. This resulted in a few hilarious descriptions, especially when the kids weren’t entirely sure of the actual definition …
We found basic game-play quite straightforward, so we introduced ‘game changer dice’ which bends the original rules, with some quirky twists like no moving your body when describing.
Probably the thing the kids enjoyed most, was being in charge of the squeaker to declare if anyone had committed a taboo!
It’s a great game, and best of all, it’s time for to sit around in each others’ company. There’s no screens, running off and hiding in a bedroom, playing a board game is time to be together, be present, converse and do the best thing in life: laugh.
I love the idea of the National Board Games week: Register on the website, and get your free pack straight away. There’s also a chance to win prizes with Pork Farm, so well worth joining in!
I’d love to know what board games you like to play as a family, and I say you can’t beat a bit of healthy family competition!
We received Taboo and compensation in return for my time in writing this review
