Review: Squint Junior | |
by the nearly six year old K. Schultz as told to Nancy Schultz | |
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Squint Junior is made by Out of the Box Games.
It has lots of shape cards, some look like letters. It has a timer. It has cards that have pictures of things for you to make with the shape cards. There is a box to hold the picture cards with a place where you can see the picture cards inside the box. And there are lots of chips, and they used to have a bag, but I lost mine. Squint Junior is a fun game to play. You have to guess what the other person is making with the shape cards before the timer runs out. If you guess right first, you get a chip and the person making the picture gets a chip. If you don’t guess before the timer runs out, no one gets a chip. You can play one, two or three rounds and whoever has the most chips at the end wins. I like making the pictures with the shape cards. And you don’t have to use the picture cards that come with the game to make pictures, but there are a lot of pictures that come with the game. It is easy for me to play by myself too, but it’s more fun to play with more people, especially when they help me read the word on the picture cards (but I know what most of them are anyway.) Mom's turn: The box says that the game is for 3-8 players aged 8 and up, but as K’s review attests, you don’t have to be 8 to understand or play the game. And while it is something of a party game (which will be used at K’s next birthday), it is also lots of fun for her to play by herself while I work on my writing or other projects. Rather than scoring chips for guessing right, she gives herself a chip for each picture she makes before the timer runs out. I generally enjoy games such as Pictionary, and I applaud Squint Junior for having the versatility of Pictionary without the consumable supplies (granted, it’s not that difficult to get a scratch pad to draw on, but still, the supplies are consumable). It is a lot of fun to play, and unlike many other games, it’s not one where the age difference gives “adults” any real inherent advantage over the children. There is no real strategy to playing well. Players just need the imagination to see beyond a bunch of squiggles to find the picture, an area where kids tend to be superior to adults. And keeping the spark of imagination alive is always a good thing. |