[Ad- gifted product] We are a big fan of both board games and family games in our household. Something that can be played together with everyone in our house, is always a big plus. We do play a lot of video games together, as both myself and my partner work in the games industry, but we also have ‘no-screen days’ to focus more on our toys and small projects in our household. Though Pointz isn’t technically a board game – or even a tabletop game as it’s best to play it on the floor – it really fit in with the tabletop and family nights we have. Pointz contains a bunch of cards inside a big spinner, and those cards and the container itself are all you need to play the game. I should note that it’s very easy to get these cards into the spinner, as the container opens up. The bottom of the container has a small nub, which is what the spinner is balanced on, so that, regardless of your strength, it can spin easily on flooring.
In Pointz, everyone sits in a circle. The youngest person spins the spinner and whoever it points too needs to take the top card. These cards do have hints as to what they of challenge they are, in the form of the colour and back design. Some of the cards have more conversational tasks like to spin the spinner and talk about another player for the entire duration, while other cards tell the chosen player to run off and find an item of a specific colour before the spinner stops. Another tells everyone to stand up, then the first person to sit down once the spinner stops gets the card. Some have players pretending to be animals while others have players doing small exercise tasks while the spinner acts as a timer.
The goal is to get the most cards in whatever time frame you want to play in! Another mechanic, which can really change the pace of the game, is that there is a jackpot pile which forms by the side of the spinner. There’s ample opportunities to grab this, and it can really fill up quite quickly depending on the order of the cards.
Perhaps my favourite thing about the whole game is that there is no defined endings and it specifically says as much – it’s up to you to decide if you want to wait until all of the cards run out, pick a certain score or even a pre-defined time. Robin, who is four years old and technically a bit young for the age rating on this game, had a lovely time playing, although the rules needed to be loosened for her. She especially enjoyed the story-based challenges and talking challenges, which encouraged her to use longer, more descriptive sentences to fill time. Even Kai, who initially seeming reluctant to play, had fun and ended up winning when final arrows were counted up. As the game had so many different cards with different types of actions, nothing felt boring or overdone to any of the children at all. We also all loved the way Pointz looks – with no box, and stored just in the container- it looks quirky and fun in our toy area. It’s a great little game.
You can find Pointz on Amazon.