Games and Toys

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K’NEX Swing Ride Building Set

Product was provided to me by K’NEX. Some links are affiliate links. All opinions are my own.

K’NEX have always been some of my kids’ favorite toys. They are fun to make and educational at the same time. Over the past few years we have built rollercoasters, Ferris wheels, cars, and just strange stuff. This year K’NEX sent me a set from their Stem Explorations Series, the Swing Ride Building Set to try out!

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Snake Oil Game Review

Out of the Box Games Review

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My family and I enjoy playing board games together, and the holiday season is the perfect time to add a new game to our extensive collection. We own quite a few games from Out of the Box Games, so we were happy to have the chance to review their game Snake Oil.

Snake Oil is best for ages 10 and up, an retails for $19.99.  This is a fun party game that needs at least 3 players and is more fun the more participants you have!

Out of the Box Games Review
The game instructions say it takes about 5 minutes to learn, and it really is that simple.  Each player takes 6 word cards, and then one player picks a customer card.  All the other players pick 2 of their word cards that would make a perfect product for the customer, and have 30 seconds to try and convince the customer to buy their product.  The game rewards quick thinking and imagination.

K’nex Raptor’s Revenge Roller Coaster Review and Giveaway

Disclosure: I received product to review, all opinions are my own. Post includes affiliate links.

My kids love K’nex, because they are so fun to build and use.  They are toys that provide challenging models to build and play with, and many times the models are motorized, like the Raptor’s Revenge Roller Coaster I received to review recently.

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This kit is a challenging one, with over 600 parts including rods, connectors and track.  When it is finished it sends a green coaster car hurtling through over 19 feet of track.  My 15 year old son took on the challenge of putting this together, and he insisted on doing it all himself.  The instruction book is very detailed, with over 43 pages of diagrams!

Knex Building Toys – Zombie Attack

Disclosure: I received product to review. 

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My kids and I love building with K’nex! These toys are perfect for keeping minds engaged and encouraging creativity. I recently received a bunch of K’nex’s building toys to review.

Knex Toys

K’nex has a whole line of toys based off video games, which I think is great idea.  Kids love video games, so these building sets can encourage kids to move from playing electronically to creating their own story using the characters.  Instead of buying a video game you can buy a toy based on the game, and they will have more hands on fun.  When we got these toys we were immediately drawn to the Football Mech Building Set” Plants Vs. Zombies Football Mech Assortment Set.  Let’s face it zombies are popular right now!

Knex Football Zombie

The Sims 4 – Smarter Sims and Weirder Stories

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.

Are you excited about the release this week of the new Simsâ„¢ 4 PC game? The new game promises Smarter Sims and Weirder Stories, all of which make for exciting game play.  Sims is one of my family’s favorite games, so you can be sure we were among the first to buy the newest game in this popular series!

The Sims 4 Launch #TheSims4 #CollectiveBias #shop

The game was released on Tuesday, which also happened to be the first day of Back to Homeschool for my son. So after a busy day of school work we headed to Walmart to get our hands on a copy, and picked up the Sims4 Limited Edition.

Steam Park Game Review

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My family and I love to play games together, and we especially enjoy complex strategy games.  So we were excited to review the brand new game Steam Park, in which you design and manage your own coal-powered amusement park.  This is a fast paced game and the goal is to build the biggest and most profitable park, and attract visitors to it.

Steam Park Game Review

The first thing we noticed when we opened the game is how gorgeously designed it is!  The pieces are wooden, not plastic, and the rides are three dimensional, made out of heavy cardboard and look beautiful and durable. It takes a little time to put all the pieces together the first time you play, but the box is designed to hold them all so you don’t have to take them back apart again.

Harry Potter Clue Review

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Clue: World of Harry Potter box

My kids and I are huge Harry Potter fans, so naturally when we had the chance to review the game  Clue – World Of Harry Potter we jumped at the chance.  Clue is a classic game that we have played many, many times at our house, although we have always played the original Clue, not one of the variations.  I expected this to just be the same Clue game we were familiar with, only with the characters and locations changed to reflect the theme.  But they actually made some additions to the game which made it more fun and challenging.  The premise of the game is that a student has vanished from Hogwarts, and you must unravel the mystery of their kidnapping.

World Series of Yahtzee Game Review and Giveaway

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMy family always enjoys trying out new games! We recently had the chance to test out Hasbro’s updated version of Yahtzee, The World Series of Yahtzee.  This variation takes the somewhat slow dice game and turns it into a fast paced game where having good reflexes are key.

My kids never want to play traditional Yahtzee because it takes so long to play.  In our family the pace of the game is made worse because my husband always takes forever to figure out where to score his dice.

Twister Rave Ringz and Skip It Review and Giveaway

I always enjoy trying out new games with my family!  And I recently had the chance to try some fun new active games from Hasbro, Twister Rave Skip It and Twister Rave Ringz.  I like the fact that these games get kids moving while the have fun. Plus since they both have lots of levels they have are fun to play over and over again.

Twister Rave Skip It

Scrabble Catch Phrase Review and Giveaway

catch phraseScrabble Catch Phrase is the new version of Catch Phrase from Hasbro.  This new game is the same basic game as the original Catch Phrase, but the words and categories are changed so that it is like a whole new game.  The motto of the game is the “Grab It, Guess It and Pass It Game," and it lives up to that billing.  In this game you are given a word or phrase on the game screen.  You have to give your teammates clues so they can guess the word or phrase.  Once your team has guessed the word you pass it to the other team, and they take a turn.  This continues until the buzzer goes off, at which point whichever team is holding the unit loses.

Twister Dance Review and Giveaway

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Playing games together as a family is something we love to do. And I recently had the chance for my family to try out the new Twister Dance Game from Hasbro. Now I am sure everyone is familiar with classic Twister, which is a fun party game. But now that I am older and less flexible there is no way I can twist my body into the pretzel positions that game requires! In addition the vinyl mat for Twister never folds up neatly and fits back in the box, so we rarely get it out to play.  This new Twister game doesn’t require impossible body contortions, and it has separate Twister spots, not a huge vinyl mat.

Zero Board Game Review

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

zero board gameZero is a new board game from University Games, which asks players to search their minds for the “least popular” answers.  The game makers surveyed over 450 people to find the answers questions, and the object of the game is to pick the least popular correct answer. This is actually pretty tricky, because you have to pick an answer which is correct, but not popular.  This is one of the best games my family has played lately, and it caused lots of laughs as we played.

Tenzi Game Review

tenzi

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My family loves to play games together, and my preference is for ones that aren’t too complicated.  We have some games that take 20 minutes just to set up, which is fine when we have an entire evening for game playing.  But sometimes we want something that is quick to play and doesn’t take a lot of strategy, so we can fit it into our busy schedule.

Tenzi is a new dice game that is perfect for a quick, fun, family game.  In this game everyone gets 10 dice, and then rolls and rolls as fast as they can until some gets all ten dice on the same number.  It is very simple to play, but lots of fun.