Thames & Kosmos 'The Colour Monster' Game - Review

[AD/Gifted - We received a copy of the game for the purpose of this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

When we were offered the chance to try out the new 'The Colour Monster' game from Thames & Kosmos, I jumped at the chance. It is based on the popular children's book of the same name and although we aren't familiar with it (although I'll definitely be buying a copy now!) the premise of the game really appealed to me, especially with having an autistic child who sometimes struggles with emotions.

The Colour Monster encourages discussions of emotions and how to help children understand them. 

Inside the box you get:

• a game board
• dice
• Monster figure
• child figure
• 2 x shelves
• 8 x jars
• 5 x colour tokens

Before you begin, you need to build the two shelf units and place the jars circle side facing out. The Monster and the girl figure will both begin on the pink splash of colour on the game board and the colour tokens will go on the relevant splashes. Each colour represents an emotion; pink is love, green is calm, blue is sadness, yellow is happy, black is fear and red is anger.

Each player takes turn to roll the dice and they can the move the Monster or their friend (who is there for support) across the game board. 

Once you have stopped on a colour, you must tell everyone something that makes you feel that emotion then you pick a jar to put the colour token into. Each jar will have a colour on the back so you have to guess the right one to get a match. Three of the jars have mixed emotions. If you get the right jar, you slot the token in. If you get the wrong jar, you must put the jar back. If you choose a jar with mixed emotions, you must turn it around so that the colours are on display. If all three end up being turned around during the same game, the Monster will be confused and overcome with emotion and need to go to bed. You win if all the tokens go into the correct jars without the Monster becoming confused.

Both C and E absolutely love this game and have even been asking Daddy to play it with them while I've been at work. It's not like any other game we have played before and it is so nice to encourage a discussion. It made me realise that I very rarely talk about my own emotions with the kids so doing that for a change was refreshing and it is lovely to hear their thoughts and feelings too - some of which did surprise me a little.

The drawings are stunning and it's just a lovely family game that will grow with us and be played a lot. It's recommended for children aged 4+ and retails at £38. You can find out more about The Colour Monster at Kosmos Games.

Best Board Games for People with Disabilities

My six year old son C was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder ten months ago. It's still a massive learning curve for us, we are still learning how to cope day to day as we go along and have been attending workshops to teach us how to best deal with his behaviours.

As much as I still don't even like to admit it, it is a disability, and we do have to make some adjustments for him as he processes things differently. We know what to do and what not to do as we know what will cause a sensory overload and subsequent meltdown. Although we do need to make these adjustments, we also try to treat him as normally as we possibly can because I don't want to use his autism as an excuse for "naughty" behaviour that has nothing to do with the condition. 

C struggles mostly with social situations and empathy and imagining how others are feeling. Taking turns and waiting are hard for him too. He likes to be in control of situations so he knows exactly what is going to happen. He cannot cope with the unknown. Waiting is a struggle because he prefers to physically see how long something is going to take as he can't imagine what five or ten minutes looks like. 

For as long as I can remember, we have had a family game night. It's something that the four of us can do to spend time together and have fun. There are a few that I don't think he could cope with such a Monopoly simply because of the duration of the game - there's no way he'd sit that long! - so we tend to choose games that are short and hold his attention.

C is a typical six year old boy and loves a bit of toilet humour. I know that these types of games will make him laugh and he actually wants to play them because he finds them so funny. Gooey Louie - who knew that a game where you have to pull bogies out of a giant nose would be so fun? Although there is the unknown aspect of when the brain will squeak and pop out, he got used to it quite quickly and anticipates it. We do make a minor adjustment and remove the black coloured one as it frightens him.

Poopyhead is another one that C really enjoys. He is really good at remembering sequences and the aim here is to place cards in order; toilet, poo, wipe, wash hands. The loser has to attach a rubber poo on their head. This game helps his memory, having to remember what card comes next, but adds the funny aspect with the poos.

Pull My Finger is probably C's ultimate favourite. Each player spins and pulls the monkeys finger. It's bottom will expand then fart unexpectedly. Again, he anticipates this and it is a little better as he can physically see the bottom getting bigger and so knows when it is going to happen. This one is great as it is fast paced but also encourages him to take turns and wait for others to have their turn.

Disney Guess The Film is one that is not only great for C but for the whole family. We are massive Disney fans and this game shows a little part of a scene and you need to guess what film it is to win a point. C can recall things very quickly with precision (I feel like he may have an eidetic memory) so he always excels at this one.

5 Second Rule is a fun one that even trips me up! Each player has five seconds to name three things from a category that is chosen such as "3 things you see at the beach". It encourages C to think logically and quickly. Sometimes he does give a bit of a silly answer under pressure but rather than getting annoyed, we've found that he finds it quite funny instead.

Finally, Jenga is a game that I originally thought might be hit or miss. It's a classic so I'm sure it needs no introduction but C takes his time to properly think about the consequence of his move and it proves to work well for him!

As he gets older, I would love to introduce more grown up games to him such as Cluedo or even Chess to see if he enjoys those and how we can adapt them to his capabilities. Board games can be great for people with disabilities and can help with the brain. I have focused here on our experiences with C and ASD but board games can help many people with different types of disability, some of which can be seen on the Bathing Solutions blog.

(This is a sponsored post.)

 

Father's Day Gift Ideas: Accentuate

Chris and I love playing a good board game. They are a great way to get together as a family and ditch the screens for a few hours.

Last up on my Father's Day gift guide is a board game perfect for all the family - Accentuate.

The box contains:

• Quotation cards
• Accent cards
• Timer
• Dice

The aim of the game is to pick a card from each deck, read the quotation in the accent that you have been given. If your teammate guesses correctly, you win the points stated on the accent card.

The dice has four options - swap, pass, play or all. Obviously, 'swap' means you can swap the accent card if you wish to but you must do this and read your quotation in the new accent before the timer finishes. 'Pass' means you can pass it over to your teammate to do if you think they'll do it better. 'Play' means that you must read the quotation in the chosen accent, regardless of how awful you are at it. Finally, 'all' means that all teams have one guess and each correct guess gets a point.

The winner is the team with the most points at the end of the game. Chris and I are terrible at doing accents so this was the most fun we've had in a long time. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard!

Accentuate is recommended for 4 or more players but we were able to play just the two of us.

You can purchase your own game from the Accentuate website for only £19.99 with free delivery! You can also keep up to date on Facebook and Twitter.

(Disclaimer: We received a copy of this game for the purpose of this post.)

Dream Toys 2013 - Monopoly Empire Review

With Christmas approaching, I'm sure your kids all have massive lists for Santa and you want to make sure that you get as much of what they want as possible and leave behind the stuff that will be a novelty on the day, but will get thrown to the bottom of the toy box never to be seen again. 

Just in case you haven't seen the list you can view the Dream Toys 2013 here at Argos.

As I am so lovely to my dear readers, I have been reviewing one of these fab toys - Monopoly Empire. 

I am a huge fan of Monopoly as it is so I was excited to see how this game would differ to the original. The aim of Monopoly Empire is to build your tower first. The first player to the top wins!

I took out all of the pieces and noticed that we had a few new additions as well as some omissions. Towers, brand tokens and Empire cards (Get Out of Jail Free, Just Say No - meaning you can play it when another player has something against you) are all new. We still have Chance cards and tokens (instead of houses) whenever you own a full colour set. The money only comes in 500k, 100k and 50k.

The brand tokens are all different sizes. The more expensive the brand, the bigger the token and therefore the quicker it will be for you to reach the top of the tower. 

Just like the original Monopoly game, you have a banker and each player gets 1000k as well as 2 Empire cards at the beginning of the game which you can play at any time. The towers have numbers on them so when you start placing tokens on them you will see a number above it. When you pass Go, instead of getting 200k, you get whatever number is displayed on your tower. If you have no brands, you get 50k. 

Another change in this game is the Free Parking space. In Monopoly Empire, you can either land on Free Parking and do nothing or pay the bank 100k to move to any space on the board. 

When you land on a brand that another player owns, instead of owing them the price of the brand, you need to pay them the number that is displayed on their tower. 

The die are a little different too. One of them has a symbol of two hands shaking. If you roll and it lands on that, you have the option to swap the top brand on your tower for the top brand of another players or you can just play on as normal with the number shown on the other dice. 

When we play the original Monopoly, the game normally lasts for hours and we end up getting bored. We played this game twice and the longest game only lasted around 45-60 minutes. It is definitely becoming one of my favourite board games and it WILL be out at Christmas for everyone to play. My sister even woke up the next morning wanting to play again!

You can purchase your own Monopoly Empire for a sale price of only £13.49 here.

(Disclaimer: This post is in association with Argos.)