Board Game Review: State Master

Homeschool Games
2-6 players
10+ minutes (depending on player number and skill)
COMPETITIVE

“….Texas has Austin, then we go north

To Massachusetts’ Boston, and Albany, New York

Tallahassee, Florida, and Washington, D.C.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Elvis used to hang out there a lot, ya know.” – Wakko’s America

 

Who can forget the immortal words of the genius that is Wakko Warner, as he fiddled his way through the capitals of all 50 states? Sadly, since the retirement of the Warner Brothers (and the Warner sister), there has been a severe lack in fun ways to learn geography!

Have no fear!  State Master is here!

State Master is a quick competitive game that allows children to learn state trivia in an engaging way! It’s like the U.S. State version of trivial pursuit with the initial roll mechanic of most board games.  Each of the 50 state master cards are double sided, with the state flag & name on the front and six state facts on the back.

To play State Master, five cards times the number of players are placed flag side up ten for two players, thirty for six, etc.) as well as a blank political map of the United States (which is labeled on the back). Players then chose their dice and roll, seven dice are provided, six different colored dice that basically act as player’s pieces and one special die.  The person that rolls the highest places their die on the state of their choice and so on down – the instructions do not provide any guidance on ties, so we rerolled ties – though whatever your house rules for ties are would work fine.

After all the dice are placed, the first player for the round rolls the special die which chooses the category of trivia. The categories are:

• Abbreviation
• Capital
• Largest City
• Year of Statehood
• Nickname
• Population Rank

Each player must then answer for their state.  If they are correct, they must then chose their state on the map, in order to win the card.  Each round progresses the same way until their are fewer cards on the board than there are players in the game.

State Master is overall a pretty fun game in the educational realm, and I was surprised at how little I knew, even about my home state! It definitely has some great learning and memorization potential and the cards could even double as flash cards if you were so inclined.  Replayability will likely be high for a while until your children have mastered most of the data, however; in a classroom setting, this game could be fantastic and would likely never grow old.

There is no age range for this game, which makes sense, as you could easily read the answers to a younger child, though reading at a moderate level would be required to play independent of an adult.

All in all, State Master is a fun and well thought out game that has a price point of $15 or less (if you get in early) and is worth it for helping your child learn more about the country we live in. State Master is currently on Kickstarter and will end its campaign (appropriately) on July 4th!  As Wakko would say it’s “Faboo”!