I thought long and hard about whether today’s game counted as part of Summer Games Fest, but at the end of the day, it’s got hide and seek GAME on the front, and it’s my list, so who cares? Plus, this is one of the coolest things my kids have played with in a while. It’s so simple, yet they literally spent about four hours playing with it yesterday afternoon.

The Bluey Hide and Seek Game is a really simple concept. You get a really nice Bluey statue that is electronic, and when you press her nose, she talks to you briefly and then goes into hiding mode. What that basically means is that every 10 to 20 seconds, she giggles, says “You can’t find me!” or gives a distant “Hello!?”

The concept is that you have to be the first player to try and find Bluey, obviously using the audio clues to help you.

This is such a simple idea, and I’ve got absolutely no idea why it hasn’t existed before, but it’s actually brilliant. One of the issues with playing hide and seek, especially if you’re playing in a relatively small house, is that there are a limited number of places you can hide. But with this, all of a sudden a world of possibilities opens up, because of the noise. You can actually hide it in some pretty tricky places, and the sound gives just enough of a hint to keep the game going. It really flips the whole concept of hide and seek on its head, and my kids absolutely loved it.

We got this yesterday as a late birthday present for Henry, and the kids played with it at Grandma and Grandad’s house all afternoon. We even got a lot of lovely time to sit and chat. I even had quite a few goes myself, and it’s really, really enjoyable.

So there we go. Probably the least board game-y game I’ve reviewed on here, but again, it’s my list, and it does say “game” on the front, so we’re going to let it pass. But genuinely, this is an awesome game that I would 100% recommend.

Illustration of two cartoon characters, one male and one female, holding a green bar with the text "Should you play? Definitely," promoting a positive gaming experience.

Matthew Bailey