Bumparena

My first reaction to Bumparena on taking it out of the box was, "How in the heck did they figure out how to build it so it would fit back in there?" (Which, by the way, it does.) My second reaction was, "How are they able to set this low a price point with all this custom plastic work?"

When I actually played the game, I found a silly but enjoyable game that reminded me a bit of the old Ideal game, Avalanche, and a game of Pachinko that you could manipulate. Players take turns drawing a card and then playing a card from their hand to manipulate the layout of the sloped board by adding bumpers and (rubber) balls as well as re-orienting pieces that are already on the board.

Some of the cards in the deck are what we here at the Jackson house call "release the hounds" cards -- whoever drew the card gets to let the down the gates and let the balls fall through the maze into the scoring bins at the bottom.

Players score one point for each ball that falls into their bin, and the first player to reach seven points wins.

One of the odd choices with the game that works well with kids but actually reduces the tactical level is the use of rubber bouncy balls (again, custom-made for Cranium). There's a lot of ricocheting and bouncing going on that sometimes completely negates any thoughtful placement of barriers. It might be more tactical with hard marbles -- but probably less "fun."

Another odd but understandable choice is that the game works best with two players (using a yellow triangle to block the center scoring area) or three players (with all three scoring areas). Four players is a partnership game -- sort of -- that is much less successful.

Bumparena is not rocket science, but it's a lot of fun and can often be found for great prices (we bought a number of copies for party gifts when Toys 'R' Us was blowing them out at $7.)

Bumparena is for 2 to 4 players, ages 7 and up. It was designed by Forrest-Pruzan Creative and published by Cranium (now owned by Hasbro).