Fun Action Games from John Adams

All my children love board games, and I like nothing better than us all spending quality time together playing. When these fun action games arrived from John Adams my children couldn’t contain their excitement. I have to be honest and say that they are not the type of kids games I usually buy. I’m a bit of a boring Mum who likes longer games with a bit of an educational slant. HOWEVER, the giggles and squeals of delight I heard as all three children played nicely together have made me slightly rethink my gaming strategy. After all games should be fun too, right?

We invited some friends over to gauge their opinions too.

Gooey Louie

First up is Gooey Louie, even the title made the girls and their friends laugh. The idea is that you pull snot from Louie’s nose. If you get a black snot you miss a go, if you get a green one, play passes to the next player. If you pull the snot that makes the brain and eyes pop out, you lose.

This game is quite short, but very easy to set up again, so can be played over and over quite quickly. It got a big thumbs up from my girls and their friends, who like nothing more than sharing snot stories!

Silly Moo

Next up is Silly Moo which is my favourite of the three games, because there is a little maths practice in there, which is great for S who has just started school. Players take it in turns to throw the dice and either miss a turn or get to pull the udders a number of times. If a milk bottle or cow pat drops out of the cow, the player keeps them till the end of the game. Once the cow is ‘fully milked’ her eyes pop out and the game is over. Players calculate their score, milk bottles are 1 pont, golden bottles 2 points and cow pats minus 1.

This game also got a big thumbs up from my children and their friends, the idea of pulling an udder and then milk popping out the cows bottom was hilarious for them. It also led to some great teamwork as the bigger children helped the little ones add up their score at the end.

When playing by themselves the children did manage to completely jam Silly Moo. When you refill her with bottles and cow pats you turn the tail and add one item to each compartment. Someone added two and it all got jammed up. There are instructions on YouTube for fixing this problem, but it did take us about 30 minutes to sort.

Don’t Take Busters Bones

To start with H, who is 3, was a bit scared of the noise Buster makes when he wakes up, so the recommended age for Don’t Take Busters Bones being 4 is probably accurate.

Players take it in turns to turn over a card which has a number and colour bone on it, and then have to use the tweezers to steal the bones from Buster. If Buster wakes, he jumps up and growls quite loudly. Z and S did bore of this quite quickly but used Buster to make up their own sleeping and waking game, so he has definitely been good entertainment value.

When we had friends round, the children did all play with Buster for a long time. Again, he is very easy to set up so no one gets bored waiting.

Conclusions

All three games are very easy to set up and play, brilliant for small groups of children to play together with or without an adult. I can almost guarantee lots of giggles. Personally I’d still prefer a more family oriented strategy game, but these fun family games definitely have their place in any game collection.

We are Games Testers for John Adams and were sent the three games above for the purpose of this review.