Family Board Game Review: Build or BOOM!

Proto Toys, LLC

Age Rating: 4+

Players: 2

Timeframe:

MSRP: $24.95

Style: Dexterity

Race to construct an epic tower, beat your opponent, and blow things up! What could be more fun?

Introduction

Build or BOOM is a block stacking dexterity game designed to be played by even the youngest member of your family. Your goal is to race your opponent to complete a tower out of uniquely shaped blocks and BOOM their tower to keep them from winning.

Contents

• 30 Blueprint cards
• 1 card holder
• 2 Building Platforms with dynamite

Lots of plastic blocks including:

• 2 Construction Workers
• 8 Wood Planks
• 4 Steel Beams
• 4 Traffic Cones
• 8 Cement Blocks
• 4 Inner Arch
• 4 Triangle Blocks
• 4 Wood Arch planks
• 4 Barrels

The components are fun and well made. The Blueprint Cards are sturdy, have cute artwork, and have pun-ny and funny titles. The box interior is not particularly well designed and pieces get jumbled up, making the box hard to close. It definitely takes a bit of time to put back together.

Gameplay

This game is simple to learn, fast to play, and tons of fun. Each player takes a building platform with a tube attached to it with a squeezable pile of dynamite at the end.  The squeezable dynamite gets placed near your opponent.  The building blocks are spread out in the center of the circle formed by the platforms and tubes. The card holder and Blueprint Cards are placed to the side.  Players draw a Blueprint Card and put it in the card holder.  On the count of three, players race to follow the plan on the card using the blocks in the center. Once a player has completed the Blueprint, they squeeze the BOOMER. This causes their opponent’s platform to lift and topples their tower. If the winning player matched the Blueprint exactly, the player will score one point. Blocks get replaced in the middle of the table and you play again. The first person to score 10 points wins!

Is it a Family Game?

This game is absolutely playable by everyone in the family. It is designed for kids 4 yrs old and over, but is still fun and playable by the more mature members of the family. The concepts are simple to understand and no reading is required. The plastic pieces are big enough for tiny hands to manipulate and the towers are challenging for all ages. Keep in mind that unfair matches can be an issue when pitting opponents of too large of an age gap. Make sure opponents have fairly equal fine motor skills or abilities or you may run into unnecessary trouble and drama. Our 4yr old enjoyed playing with children her age, but did not enjoy playing with her older brothers.

In addition to the obvious dexterity skills that your children will practice while playing, there are opportunities to teach rudimentary physics and geometry when playing this game. Our youngest loved discussing cones, rectangular prisms and cubes. Oh, and be prepared to come up with creative ways to explain the Dad Joke style titles on the Blueprint Cards.

Conclusion

This is a fast paced family friendly game that can be enjoyed by new gamers, casual gamers, and experienced gamers alike. Because the game is dexterity based, it leads to a lot of hilarity and silliness when clumsy or silly mistakes are made. The race against the clock aspect caused by anticipation of the BOOM adds a level of excitement not found in other dexterity games. Our kids loved this one right out of the box and played away entire snow days laughing and giggling the entire time. The price point of $29.95 seems perfectly fair for the number of pieces that you get and the quality of the components. Overall, this is definitely a fun addition to the game shelf.

FCC disclosure: A copy of this game was sent to us by the publisher for the purposes of this review.