By Dale Medhurst
Shake n’ Take is a quick, manic game from Out Of The Box Games. The game is pretty simple. Each player has a dry-erase board sheet containing a multitude of different-shaped aliens. One player takes the role of Alien Hunter and is armed with a rather funky pen topped with a great green alien head.
One player rolls a dice then the Alien Hunter has to find the aliens on his board that match the shape rolled. Another player then shakes a dinky see-thru egg than contains a six-sided dice. On some sides of this green dice is an alien face.
If the alien side appears…everyone can grab for the pen and whoever gets it first becomes the Alien Hunter. This continues until a player has crossed off all the aliens on his sheet, rather like a bizarre form of Bingo!
This game is not very deep but it is great fun. It involves lots of rabid eggshaking ( last time I did that was in primary school music lessons!), pen snatching, scribbling, shouting and, most importantly, laughter.
I’ve mainly played this with kids and they have loved it. I think this is the target audience but this is what Out of the Box games are so good at; fun, fast games that parents can enjoy playing with their kids. A friend took this on a camping trip and it was a godsend for his sons on those rainy days.
What sets Shake N’ Take above a lot of other kids games is the presentation. The box is eye-catching and the components are great. The egg shakers feel fab and just the right size for jam hands and the alien heads on top of the pens just made me smile the first time I saw them. The play boards have loads of shapes on them but never feels to cluttered. You even get a small play board rubber likes those that teachers used to throw at chatting pupils.
In summary, I think this game is ideal for kids or families. It would be ideal for rainy day playtime at schools and I would be interested to see how it plays at party with adults especially after a few drinks!
However, I could only see it coming out the gaming cupboard now and again once the initial novelty has worn off. That said, it is a relatively inexpensive game and makes a refreshing change from the usual buckaroo, pop up pirates variants that kids usually get bought for Christmas.
SHAKE N’ TAKE is available from: