Pass the Pigs

I recently took a trip with my 7 year old nephew and while waiting for a delayed flight this game was handy. Small enough to fit in a mom's purse to take to long doctor visits, etc.

This game is a change from the usual board games, Monopoly, Sorry, etc. It is both fun and educational. You join Lewis & Clark in exploring the unknown. The goals: map the rivers, make friends with natives, open the West to trade, and look for a Northwest Passage (an easy water route from coast to coast). I purchased this as a gift the receipent loves it and plays with it often.

I bought this based on the dozens of glowing reviews here on Amazon, the wide age range (easy enough for my 7 year old), and the low purchase price (less than $10).

The pigs are adorable and the self containing hard plastic packaging is much more durable than the cardboard boxes most games come with. I am sure this will accompany us on trips to the beach.

That said, the game gets very repetitive fast. And by fast, I mean in the first 30 minutes of total game play. There are a limited number of rolls and they take place again and again until someone reaches 100. And since you can roll as many times as you want (unless you roll a pig out), it is possible for only one player to play for a whole game with nobody else having a turn. Yay. We will have to look for some alternative rules to spice things up.

I have played this game for many years, but wanted to order a new set. What I discovered was apparently a bad design flaw in the pigs. The whole purpose of the game is when you roll the pigs you get points based on how they land. With this new set the pigs often landed in a position that was somewhere in between laying on their side and laying on their back. It appeared as if the tail was made wrong. The final landing position of the pigs means everything in the game and if you can't determine if you have "razorback" or if it's laying on its side, then it's useless. Amazon took the return with no problems whatsoever!

I first played this game at a friends house with my daughter. It was fun and easy and fast paced. What I liked about it other than being cute and funny was that my daughter worked on her math skills with keeping our scores. It was easy to play and didn't take hours to play. It's a good game for traveling.