Boggle Flash
As the Christmas season approaches all manner of new games start to hit the shelves to tempt you to open your purse/wallet. Some of them look fantastic but actually there’s not much to them once you open the packet. Boggle Flash is a bit like that but not because its a rubbish game, quite the opposite in fact. But there’s not much too it because once you have opened the box you can recycle all the packaging and all that you are left with is a handy little black carry case which stores the digital cubes and the instructions. It’s a mastermind of technology in 5 little cubes!! I have never played the original Boggle game, Mum wasn’t keen on board games so she would only buy me the ones I could play by myself – but I don’t mind!
I was sent Boggle Flash to review with my 9 year old stepson Curly and I can’t praise the game enough. From the age of 3 years we have had Wednesday Games Night, why? Because Wednesday was our night in the week with Curly and he loves games so we thought that it would be a guaranteed way of spending some quality time with him. Granted since Little Bean and now Beanie Boy’s arrival we don’t quite manage it every Wednesday but it is still a regular feature in our household.
Curly is a bit of a bookworm and has always had a fascination with words, can you imagine a 3 year old coming to you one day asking if you know what Ornithology means? Well, he did and no I didn’t, until he told me it was the study of birds!! Ok I’ll take your word for it!
But back to the game . . . with Boggle Flash you are provided 5 digital cubes which will flash up random letters. You have 90 seconds on the timer (built into each of the cubes) to make up as many 3, 4 and 5 letter words as possible from the letters provided. Now the bit that I like is that you don’t even have to keep score as you play because the clever little cubes do all the hard work for you. Each time they are arranged into a valid word, they add it to your score. At the end of each game the cubes also tell you the number of possibilities for that round so there can be no arguments over who had easier letters – we have a rather bad case of Competitive Dad Syndrome in this house!!! There are other games which can be played but so far Curly has been happy with this one so we’ll be trying a different one some other time.
I like any games which are “educational” as it makes learning fun and to be honest they hardly notice that they are learning at the same time. It makes you think fast, a word which doesn’t normally apply to Curly as he likes to take his time over everything but like his Dad the competitive streak is starting to show.
At a RRP £24.99 you might initially think you’re not getting a lot of game for your money but I can’t stress enough how clever these little cubes really are and because of their compact size they can go anywhere with you, planes, trains and automobiles. They can even fit in an overnight bag for a sleepover at their favourite Aunties, nudge, nudge, wink, wink!
Boggle Flash is currently available for sale on-line at Toys’R’Us, John Lewis, Hamleys, Tesco, Argos, Boots, Asda and The Toy Shop with John Lewis even offering free delivery!