As you may know from reading our board game reviews on Our Family Reviews, we play a lot of board games as a family in our house. It can get quite competitive and we each have our favourites. But no matter what game we are playing, it is an excellent way of spending some good quality family time together. Whilst we love playing board games and tabletop games as a family, sometimes we just want to relax, wind down and play a game by ourselves. When thinking of single player games, not many come to mind and we don’t have many on our shelves, Solitaire is probably the best example and the one that springs to mind first. When we received ThinkFun’s Rush Hour logic game arrived we got a bit of a surprise. Not only did both of us adults like sitting down for ten minutes playing a game that put our brain matter to the test, but so did both the kids!
Rush Hour is a single player logic puzzle game that requires the player to manoeuvre their car through the traffic jam and out of the exit. It is a sliding block game that comes with 40 challenges and really does get your brain working. It is aimed at ages 8 to adult and is excellent for beginners and experts. Remember the tile puzzle games from your childhood? Rush Hour is a 3D version similar to them, but more complicated and much more fun.
In the box is:
- Plastic playing grid with pull out tray for challenge cards
- 40 challenge cards with solutions
- 1 red car
- 11 blocking cars (various colours)
- 4 blocking trucks (various colours)
- Set of instructions
- Game Go bag for taking Rush Hour out and about
The playing board has a 6×6 piece traffic grid that cars are trucks are laid out on according to the challenge cards and they can be very congested. The challenge cards have four levels: beginner (green), intermediate (orange), advanced (blue) and expert (red).
To start, you select a challenge card and stand it in the slot on the playing grid. Then lay the vehicles out on the traffic grid as the card illustrates. The idea is to manoeuvre your car (the red one) out of the exit by sliding the other vehicles forwards and backwards out of the way. The vehicles cannot be moved by lifting them up out of the way or going sideways. It sounds easy doesn’t it? Well, whilst it sounds easy, and the beginner levels are, it quite quickly grows in difficulty and requires a lot of logical and critical thinking to free your car. So whilst manoeuvring vehicles around, to solve the puzzle you may need to go a few steps back to make a one-step gain. If you do get stuck and want to cheat, the answers are on the back on each card (but that defeats the object of the game and ruins the enjoyment).
The board and the pieces are very sturdy and feel like they will last for years to come. The cards are stored within a tray under the traffic grid. The whole game can be stored in the supplied drawstring bag, which also makes it a very portable game.
There is no limit on play, so it can be played at any time playing as little or as many moves as you want, so playtime can be minutes or days. It is perfect for taking a break from work and getting the mind active.
ThinkFun’s Rush Hour is excellent. As a family, we have all loved it (the adults probably more so than the kids, but the kids really do enjoy trying to figure it out). You do have to be methodical in your thinking to solve the puzzles and not get frustrated easily. It is excellent for critical thinking, logical thinking, patience, concentration, forward thinking and seeing the bigger picture.
If you want something to challenge and play in your own time frame, then we can highly recommend ThinkFun’s Rush Hour.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £19.99
For more information, visit www.thinkfun.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
