We have been playing some great TV show board games recently and been having some excellent family fun (although they don’t stop us watching the shows and shouting answers at the television screen). After a Race Around the World, beating expert quizzers in The Chase and testing our word skills with LINGO, we were delighted to be trying out another game based on another one of our favourite tv game shows: Tipping Point.
Tipping Point is a family quiz game based on the highly popular family game show presented by Ben Shepherd. Players compete in two rounds of questions to gain as many counters as possible by answering general knowledge questions and the unpredictability of dropping tokens into a machine to win cash. The winning team goes on to compete in the final to try and win the jackpot counter. It is suitable for 3+ players or teams, age 10+.
In the box:
- Electronic Tipping Point Machine (requires 2x AA batteries – not supplied)
- 110 Question Cards (80 blue / 30 red)
- 80 Tokens including team colour, jackpot and forfeit tokens
- Instructions
Tipping Point is a quiz game that also uses an electronic Tipping Point machine. It does require some quick assembly before you can play. It requires 2x AA batteries (not supplied) to be installed in the base unit of the Tipping Point machine, you will need a cross head screwdriver to remove the battery compartment cover. Once the batteries are installed, slot the three parts of the Tipping Point machine together. Load the machine with 28 of the black/silver tokens (14 on each level) with the remaining tokens placed in a draw pile on the table.
Players then get into 3 or 4 teams (each team must have at least 1 player). Each team is then assigned a team colour: blue, green, red or yellow and given the corresponding token.
Separate the question cards into red and blue piles and shuffle both sets of cards.
To play Round 1, each team is given 3 black/silver tokens and takes a blue question card (has 6 questions on it). Turn on the Tipping Point machine with the switch on the base and the token shelf should start moving. The game is played over 2 rounds with the highest scoring team going into the end game final. The team that has the youngest player starts first and asks the other teams the first question from their blue question card.
The first team to shout out their team colour gets to answer the question. If the question is not answered correctly that team places one of their black/silver tokens in a penalty pot. If the question is answered correctly that team can opt to put one of their black/silver tokens into the Tipping Point machine or pass to another team to do so.
Tokens are dropped into one of the four Drop Zones on the Tipping Point machine. Any tokens that are knocked off the shelf and paid out are kept by the team that dropped in the token.
It is then the turn of the next team to read out a question. Play continues until all teams have used up their three black/silver tokens.
Round 2 is played in a similar way with some slight changes. Freeze and lose tokens are added to the machine and tokens added to the machine are taken from the draw pile rather than the teams pots. Play continues until all teams have asked the 6 questions on their cards.
The team with the highest number of black/silver tokens at the end of Round 2 goes into the final end game.
To play the End Game, the machine is again loaded with 28 tokens. That team then drops in the Jackpot token onto any of the 4 drop zones. The object of this final game is to get the Jackpot token out of the machine. To do this the team needs to win tokens to be able to drop into the machine. The other teams take it in turns to ask a total of 6 multiple choice questions from the red question cards – answering an easy question correctly earns the playing team 1 token, a medium question earns 2 tokens and a hard question earn 3 tokens. After winning tokens, these can be placed into the Tipping Point machine to try and eject the Jackpot. Once all the questions have been answered and tokens dropped into the machine, to win you have to eject the Jackpot. If the Jackpot token is still in the machine after all your tokens have been dropped, you lose.
Overall, we have loved playing Tipping Point. With over 650 questions to answer on a variety of different topics, suitable for family play, it is excellent quizzing fun combined with the unpredictability and luck of dropping tokens to try and knock others off the shelf.
The rules are very easy to understand, and the questions are varied and different degrees of difficulty so that children (aged 10+) and adults can play together.
Tipping Point is excellent fun with hours and hours of playable fun and can be enjoyed again and again with the large number of questions that can be put into play and answered.
This is an excellent family game and would make a really enjoyable gift this Christmas as well as an excellent game to sit down around the table after Christmas dinner and have some quality family time playing together.
Can you beat your competing teams and the Tipping Point machine? You will have to play and find out. One thing we can guarantee is, win or lose, you will have lots of fun.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £27.99
For more information, visit www.johnadams.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
