Getting through a Tier4 Christmas with the help of Gamely [ad]

Let’s begin with a random fact about me – I love games. And is it even Christmas if you’re not arguing over Monopoly? Maybe on second thoughts, don’t answer that one, this year! Alfie’s been into puzzles for a while now, and he’s finally getting into games – largely helped by a random selection he got for his third birthday.

Introducing Gamely, who make all manner of card games, which are family friendly and can be enjoyed by all ages. Since launching their first game, Randomise in 2015, which went onto be a Christmas best-seller the following year, their tally now stands at seven games!

Soundiculous Kids is the game we were kindly gifted, and as its name suggests, it’s for kids – in fact, it’s a younger version of their original game, Soundiculous. This game is aimed at 3-7 year olds, meaning Alfie is at the lower end of the age bracket, for two or more players (or even teams, should you wish), and there’s no time limit. An average game could last 10 minutes, but you can make it as long or short as you like – or your child’s attention span allows!

Playing Soundiculous Kids

It couldn’t be easier! Each game contains 54 cards – 26 are labelled easy, and 28 are hard. When face down, these will be marked, easy are orange and hard are black, to differentiate. The aim of the game is to guess what’s on the card by the other player/s making the sound.

When I’ve been playing with Alfie, we’ve obviously only used the easy cards and the majority of them are animals, which are easily recognisable by their sounds – like pig, cow and dog. There are also transport cards, and action cards which can be acted and guessed by young children – such as crying or kissing.

We have only really mastered those, but to give a flavour for the hard cards – there are random objects, like washing machine and trampoline. There are more animal and action cards, but these are obviously more difficult to sound out and guess – like seal and goose, for the animals, and in terms of actions, having a bath and eating spaghetti.

Obviously, we don’t play competitively and it’s more about being imaginative and having fun.

So many ways to play

If you’re playing with older children, or want to make it more competitive, you could keep score, or perhaps see how many cards you could get through in 30 seconds or a minute, using an egg timer (or even your phone) to keep track. Alternatively, if playing with multiple players or teams, once an incorrect answer has been given, move on to the next player/team.

Gamely also suggests other variations. Silent Soundiculous is – you guessed it – without making sounds, and instead, acting out what is on the card, similar to charades. Alternatively, you could play Arty Soundiculous, which is where you draw out what is on the card and the first person to correctly guess is the winner – like Pictionary.

Or you could play by Alfie’s rules – I don’t think he’s cracked it yet. He usually picks up a card and tells me what’s on it. Then it’s down to me to make the sound. If I do a good job, I’ll get a “well done mummy” and if not, he will whinge “that’s not good/right, mummy”. We normally have a pretty good success rate.

Once lockdown is over, it’s definitely a game we will be able to play with Alfie’s friends when they come for play dates. But in the meantime, it’s a good family game – and one he always asks to play when he comes home from nursery. With our New Year’s plans scuppered – we were hoping to have an overnight hotel stay in Kent – I’m sure we will be having a games night instead. Soundiculous Kids will definitely be on the list.

The game is priced at £8.99 and can be found direct at Gamely, or on Amazon. The original Soundiculous is £12.99.

I think A Little Less Conversation will be next on my list – it looks like a proper dinner party classic, not that we’ll be hosting many of those for the foreseeable future. It could be a good idea for New Year’s or just a date night at home.

Thank you, Tina and the team, at Gamely – this will not only provide us with hours of fun, but years, for sure!

Love, Lucy xx

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*Thank you to Bloggers Required and Tina (and the team at Gamely) for sending me a copy of Soundiculous Kids for review purposes. Images and opinions are 100% my own.