Don’t Wake Dad! Bluey

When I saw this existed I knew I’d be buying it for the combination of nostalgia and because we (I…) love Bluey. So seeing it in the shop of a local board game cafe I snapped it up

How to play:

This is a simple roll and move game with no strategy or skill involved. Landing on tokens or rolling the ‘boombox’ side of the dice forces you to press the boombox next to the sofa. Eventually, one of these presses will trigger Bandit (dad) to wake up suddenly with his newspaper going flying. That means you have to go back to the start. First to the pavlova at the end, wins.

The tokens show a variety of objects, including many specific to the show, and a number which is how many times you have to press the boombox. Some even have a zero so you might get lucky (Bob Bilby) but I think the highest is a 4 (chattermax).

A mechanic I like is that if you roll a jetpack, you immediately fly the space in front of the person at the front. So if you get really unlucky and are sent back to the start it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s game over for you.

Components:

The Bluey theme is really well done. Next time we play, we’re going to use our 3D Bluey characters instead of the standees as they’re about the right size, which also means you could use the board and sofa as a small world play scene. The mechanism to wake Dad works well, and I love his little newspaper. There’s no insert for the box, but bags are provided for the smaller bits.

Recommendation:

My daughter has loved it and since buying it Monday evening, we’ve played it every day. It could be frustrating as you really can’t impact who wins and it could feel very unfair to be sent back to the start when you’re near the finish. But it’s fast to play so hopefully you can just go again and the drama of dad waking definitely gets a laugh.

If you like Bluey, remember this game fondly or your kids generally like games with more of a ‘toy’ feel.