[Ad- gifted product] Another Geek Retreat tabletop night has come around and this time Robin was super excited to play Don’t Panic, as it’s a game that takes batteries. She is one of those kids that when you mention we need to take batteries, she assumes it’s going to sing, light up, and just be so much more fun. Don’t Panic is a card game where you have a buzzer and timer, which is what needs the batteries, and otherwise is a pretty straightforward game.
The board that you need to follow needs to be set out on the table. Each person playing can pick a meeple and place it on start. On your turn, the person next to you needs to grab the top card and read off the goal for you, depending on the color of the tile you are currently on (or whatever color you want, if you are on the starting place). The cards have three colors on them; green, yellow and red. Green being the easiest topic and red being the hardest. Often these have a higher number for you to guess. They can be things like “name 5 balls” or “name 8 movies”, etc. They seem easy, but with the timer ticking down, it can all feel like pressure!
You see, when you get your subject, the person who read the card to you will then press the Don’t Panic button. A big timer will start to tick down as you talk, and the card keeper won’t press the button again until you have solved the task. The number left on the timer is the number of spaces you are then able to move. Some of these spaces do make you go back one or have other details on them, though it’s luck if you land on them. The board itself wouldn’t really sit flat for us, due to the way it was packaged, but that’s really the only complaint we have about Don’t Panic.
Amelia, who likes to think carefully before answering, wasn’t the target audience for the game, but Robin had a lot of fun. Dann and I found the game to be easy (due to being adults), but we can see how this would be such a fantastic children’s game, with them trying to figure out the cards and work their way around the board. It’s great for tweens and teens as well – the key is to have everyone ready to shout out and guess as the timer is ticking!