Thanks to Carrom for sponsoring this post.
Growing up with my family I played a lot of games. There was always UNO on family cabin stays, a deck of cards for Crazy 8's and Gin Rummy in the camper, Monopoly for sleepovers and a pool table in the basement for the teenagers. One of things that connected my hubby and I was our shared enjoyment of a good game of cards and I confess I miss having with other couples to just sit down and play games for hours with while enjoying some adult beverages. Having kids puts a whole other spin on game night. Game nights at our house are now all about what the kids want to play and what they are able to play. My husband and I both know how important it is for us to spend time as a family having fun together and we try to as much as possible. The Carrom Company encourages families like ours and everyone to take the time to "unplug" their devices and "connect" with your family instead.
The Carrom Company has been making games for over 100 years. Their focus is on quality games made to last right here in the USA. I was unfamiliar with the brand, but my husband grew up with a Carrom game board at his house. The make classic games like dominoes and cribbage boards and also sports games like air hockey, basketball and foosball.
We love discovering new (or new to us) games and Carrom sent us their Skittles spinning top board game to play together. We honestly had never heard of the game before, but it's a simple game to figure out.
Skittles is a wood framed box along with 12 wooden pins, some twine and a wooden top. The object of the game is to spin the top and watch it spin while hopefully knocking down as many pins as possible.
Each of the pins is positioned on the board with a point value and the further away from the start the more points you get. Although this is not a real game of skill it is a game that is fun to watch. Watching the top spin around and around can be mesmerizing and made me think of the movie Inception. The night we unboxed the game my hubby took right to it and started playing. You have to wrap the twine around the bottom of the top and then leave some loose so that you are able to pull the twine to make the top spin at the front of the game board. My hubby is quite good at pulling the twine fast so the top would spin very fast during his turns. It took me a little longer to get the feel of letting go of the top and pulling the twine quickly at the same time so a few of my tries the top didn't get hardly anywhere. After getting the hang of it though I was able to knock down some of the pins. The recommended age on Skittles is 13 and up and I can understand why. It takes a certain amount of coordination to be able to get the top spinning .
Our kids are 5 and 8 so Skittles isn't quite age appropriate for them yet. They were still able to play with my hubby's help of wrapping the twine and holding the top and boy did they get excited when the top would spin.
We realized quickly that it would be great if the game came with more than one top. Wrapping the twine is the most time consuming part of the game and if there was more than one top one player could wrap their top while the other top is spinning on the board.
Another downside of the game is the sheer size of it. The dimensions are 32"x 15" x 3.25". We are fortunate to have an old table that is set up in our mudroom that the game fits well on to play, but that is also our craft table so the game will need to be stored somewhere. I haven't figured out that spot yet. It's a nice solid piece of wood, but that means it doesn't fold up in any way. We also thought ideally the game would be mounted in some way so that the box frame couldn't move. With little kids bumping the table or the box it can easily mess up the natural spin of the top during play.
It's always nice to find games that can be played alone in addition to as a family and Skittles is a great game for someone who wants to play something on their own. It can get addicting spinning the top over and over again trying to beat your high score. I never got much over 200 for a score and so far my hubby's 330 score is the family record. I like that while we were playing my son was able to work on math/counting skills by figuring out the score.
I do see our family playing more Skittles in the future. My hubby especially seemed to be enjoying himself. It will be a nice game to have when the kids are a little older and able to play it without assistance.
The Carrom Company has chosen Thursday, October 16th as family game night across the country! So mark your calendar and get set with a new favorite game to play. You can check out all of the games Carrom offers at www.carrom.com. You can also connect with Carrom on Facebook and watch videos with their games on YouTube.
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