[Ad- gifted product] Normally, we play board games at Geek Retreat every other Monday, but with school holidays in full swing, we are fitting in a couple of extra gaming sessions! One afternoon, Amelia and Robin pulled out Lambada and wanted to play with Dann and I. Lambada is a colorful card game, with a pretty easy to follow gameplay loop, that makes it perfect for short rounds of cards.
Every player gets seven cards to start with. The rest of the cards go face up in the middle and the grey cards that spell out Lambada go across the centre of the table. The first two cards in the extra card pile gets plucked up and put on their matching grey letters, giving a start to the game. The goal is simple; get rid of all your cards. On your turn, you must place one of the cards from your hand onto the word Lambada. This can be placed on a grey letter or on a colored letter, but depending on what you play, you may end up with more or less cards then you started your turn with.
The face up card on the deck of Lambada will obviously be a color. This is a no-go color, which will force you to draw three from the deck if you place it down, ending your turn. If you place a color onto the grey letters that isn’t currently face up on the word, then you will need to draw one card and end your turn. If you place a card on the main word, that matches another color that is already down and isn’t the no-go color, you will get to pass one of your hand to your left, giving it to the next, as long as there isn’t five of the same color cards that you have placed down, or else you will need to draw and end your turn. This may sound complex, but it’s just about remembering what you can and cannot place down.
If you are lucky, you’ll be passing and placing quickly! If you run out of cards first and the word has a colored card on each letter, you will win and need to shout Lambada – with bonus points if you do a little dance. Lambada does have colorful tokens that represent winning a round, with the ultimate winner needing to reach three wins. We don’t normally use tokens to count wins as a household, as our focus is on having fun and not winning, but as these tokens were so cute, we did use them. It’s a fun, family friendly game that just feels so simple to master. If you are playing with an older age group, it’s also easy to start pushing the hands of the people next to you, by being strategic with card placement and passing, to force others to end up picking up cards!
This is so cool. I love playing board games with my kids, we try to do it at least once a week. Will check this one. Thanks a lot for the review.
I have not heard of this game before but it looks like one my grandkids would love to play and looks great fun I will look out for this
This sounds amazing! I LOVE that there are bonus points if you do a dance when you shout out Lambada.
I feel like the only possible thing that could make this game more fun is if it came with a salsa soundtrack. Very cool.
It is great ti be able to spend more time with games like this. It sounds like fun and something that my children would enjoy too!
That is a neat game! Love the colors and designs. And a great concept for a game. It is nice to find something to do as a family to spend some quality time together.