SNAP Review – Disney Mad Tea Party

A very merry unbirthday to you, Daddy!

Why thank you my dear! And a very merry unbirthday to you, too!

That’s right! It is my unbirthday! We should have a party.

A tea party, perhaps?

Yes, lets!

Game

Today’s SNAP review is about Disney Mad Tea Party, a game for ages 5 and up, published by Funko Games. Mad Tea Party is based on the famous theme park attraction first introduced in Disney’s Fantasyland, which in turn is based on the iconic scene from the animated classic Alice in Wonderland.

The object of the game is to be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand by balancing stacks of tea cups on this wobbly table.

And like most discard-your-hand games, there’s plenty that can go wrong to make you fill your hand back up again.

Art

First, let’s talk about those cards. They all feature characters from the animated movie.

Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, March Hare, Dormouse, and Alice – they’re all featured in various poses and expressions. Surrounding them are colorful backgrounds in a bold color palette.

There’s symbols on the cards telling you what they do. Using pictures instead of words is supposed to make it easier for preschoolers to play. But we thought a bunch of the symbols were really confusing. Dad had to go back to the rulebook to explain what they meant.

Once you play it enough, you do start to remember them. It feels like they needed a little more graphic design work to make them really intuitive.

The game is not just cards though. Look at these fantastic tea cups!

We love the little details on these cups, and we really appreciate that they didn’t repeat shapes or designs. If there’s any quibble, it’s that the green and blue cups are of similar shade, and so they can be confused for one another sometimes.

Mechanics

Well, this game is so straightforward that we’ve already almost explained all the rules to you.

Play a card, do what it says. Usually that’s placing a new teacup on the table. At first, you can only build on one stack. But one of the special cards lets you start a new stack.

After you place your cup … count to one… two… three. If nothing falls, phew, your turn is over!

But if the cups come crashing down (oooh!), you have to draw three cards (2, 3!), putting you that much further from victory. There’s also a series of special cards that – besides the one I just mentioned that lets you start a new stack of cups – have a similar feel to specials from Uno, like reverse the turn order, skip a player’s turn, make them draw a card, and so on.

Expectations

So Dad, what did you think this game was going to be like when we first set it up?

Dexterity games are not my favorite genre. I really wasn’t sure if I would like it. And I was a little afraid that your 4-year-old sister would have too much trouble stacking all these cups.

Surprises

Happily, though, Funko seems to have found a sweet spot in the difficulty scale where four-year-olds and clumsy adults alike can reliably get the stacks pretty high.

And since the point of the game is not to build the stack, but get rid of your cards, I found it pretty fun to play with you.

If you want to make it even easier, the rules say you can put the table down without its wobbly base. But we really liked playing with it.

And what’s your favorite surprise?

There’s tea in the tea cups! Plastic tea, anyway.

The surface of the tea is positioned at a slight angle in each cup, just enough so that they’re not stacked straight up and down. The visual effect is perfect – it looks just like the stacks and stacks of cups on the Mad Hatter’s table in the movie.

Recommended

Corey: Like Funko’s other Fantasyland-based game, It’s a Small World, Mad Tea Party takes only 10-15 minutes to play, and almost zero time to set up and clean up.

That makes it easy to get to the table, fun to play with both grown ups and kids, and more likely having you say yes to “One more game?”

We rate it 4 lumps of sugar out of 5!

Get it direct from Funko Games, on Amazon, or at your friendly local game store.

---

The Family Gamers received a copy of Disney Mad Tea Party from Funko Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?