We recently grabbed two games that we wound up really liking. Jetpack Unicorn and Poo! I will add that we bought these games mostly based on the box art. Yay graphic design!
Jetpack Unicorn is a card game for 3 or more players. Players take turns being the judge and ask questions about scenario cards. The non-judge players try to give the most interesting answers using transmog cards, which have specific words or phrases on them. The judge chooses the winner and that player gets the amount of points that are shown on their transmog cards.
Sounds easy. Except that it’s not that easy to figure out. The rules state that the judge asks anything about the scenario on the card, but the scenario card IS a question. What they mean is to ask any sort of clarifying question about the scenario, but that’s not easy to figure out from the way the instructions are written. We had to watch the online tutorial to figure that part out, and even then it seemed to me like they were playing a different game than the one we purchased.
Even with how frustrating it was figuring out how to play what is a simple game we did have fun once we figured it out, assuming we actually did figure it out. It is fun and silly and I would recommend it, but DO watch the online tutorial. Do a YouTube search for TeamHyperCube Jetpack Unicorn quickplay. Or just click here
I also feel it’s important to watch most of the videos from the Creators of Jetpack Unicorn. I not only got a much better feel for the game, but also got some great insights into the concept of the game beyond the basic mechanics. Here’s a video from the creative team explaining what they want to happen as you play the game. I’ve started it at :38 for you.
A game that was very easy to figure out and tons of fun right out of the box was Poo, a card game for 2-8 players. You are a monkey in a zoo and something in the food has made all the monkeys wacky and wild. You all start flinging poo at each other. The first player to get hit with and accumulate 15 poos loses. Our 6 year old, Finney, and I wound up playing 6 rounds at a go one morning. It’s tons of simple fun.
Players are dealt a hand of five cards. On your turn you may then play one, Poo, Special Poo, Event, or Clean card or discard any number of cards and replace them from the stack. That’s it. All of the cards tell you what to do. But wait! Just because it’s your turn doesn’t mean you don’t get to defend yourself. There are Mishap cards. Maybe your opponent plays The Big One dealing 7 poo to you. Oh no! That’s a lot of poo and you already have 9 poo. You could lose the game. Unless of course you you have Slip. All of the poo is sent back to your opponent and there is nothing that can be done about it!
Clean cards allow you to clean poo off of yourself an occasionally shake it off onto your opponent. Event cards are interesting and add an unexpected layer of strategy to Poo. For example, let’s say you play the Keeper’s Got The Hose card. The card allows players to clean 1 poo off at the start of their turn. You can still keep flinging poo at each other and all it takes is one poo flung at the keeper to make him disappear. So what do you do? Do you take advantage of being able to clean one poo off every turn? Can you afford to let your opponent do the same? Will you miss your chance for victory by dispatching the Keeper?
Poo is a great game to play between other games, but also fun to just play round after round for an afternoon. For me, Jetpack Unicorn is fun, but is a game that we only bring out once in awhile.
The World Needs A Jet Pack Unicorn
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