Matthew BaileyIn keeping with the pattern i seem to have accidentally started today we are looking at a kid’s game. Now having been “obsessed” (wife’s words not mine) with board games for about 10 years now I have seen most mechanics but today’s game is something I have never seen before and that is game 17 of the “Bailey Family Sorta Summer Board Game Bonanza” which is “Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy” played by myself and Jack(7) & Toby(4).
Now on the face of it “Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy” looks like a game for young children (the massive 6+ on the box being a small giveaway) but actually this is a game I am going to get out at my next adult board game night.
Firstly let’s clear the air you need some sort of device to play this game. While it is playable on a phone I would recommend a tablet. Either way, it needs a front camera. You have to download an app to use it (which obviously long term could be an issue with availability if you are not confident using emulation) but once downloaded it does not require an internet connection.
The game is sorta chapter driven but all that means is as you progress through the game you add more cards to your deck.
You start the game by handing out 6 cards to each player (this changed with player count). These cards should remain hidden but with little kids, you can have them seen (you are playing cooperatively after all.
A monster then appears on the screen who is a colour. You then have to feed him colourful rubbish cards that when you mix together the colours of those bits of rubbish they have to be as close to the colour of the monster as possible. You use the cards by scanning the QR codes on them on the tablet you are using. This works well and apart from an occasional moment of waving and my camera not seeing the code worked well.
Assuming you get close enough (depending on difficulty) you get a star rank for each monster out of 3 and then go on to the next one in the level).
There are also vitamin cards that the monsters do not like and can only be used once in a while (about every 5 cards) but will sometimes save you when you do not have a card even close to what you need.
As you progress through the game you add more cards to your deck some of which contain extra powers such as cancelling out the vitamin timer or allowing you to swap cards around with your teammates. There are also monsters with different abilities such as one who gives you extra cards if you use a forest card, one where you must not talk or another where the first card someone plays denotes the colour which radically changes the dynamic.
I bought “Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy” as a fun game I thought I’d enjoy with the kids but actually, I think this is an amazing game to play with anyone. The sheer joy of mixing a pastel blue with a bright yellow and getting 96% accuracy with the shade of green you were aiming/hoping for is a fantastic feeling. This is not the only app-driven game in the series from Lucky Duck Kids and I am excited to try more.
Even better “Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy” is cheap coming in at around the £12ish mark.
I must be honest I didn’t expect much from “Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy” but this has blown all expectations out of the water. This is a game I intend to play with adults and as a DT teacher I can even see myself playing this with my A-level class when we talk about colour theory as a fun little diversion.
It’s not perfect. The QR scanning isn’t always instant and there are times when purely by luck of the draw you literally have no way of winning with the cards available to you. The cards also seem very weighted to pastel colours meaning getting a bright colour is difficult.
Component quality is excellent. The box insert is great, the cards are excellent and the app is well produced and works really well.
Obviously, this game is completely unusable to people who suffer from colour blindness but for everyone else “Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy” is a fantastic kids’ game that I wholeheartedly recommend and enjoyed as an adult and I would like to play more.
Fantastic stuff
