SNAP Review – Time’s Up! Family Edition

You know Anitra, sometimes we joke that you and me playing Taboo on the same team would be kind of unfair; because we think too much alike.

That’s true with words and that kind of clue, but things sometimes go hilariously wrong when we’re playing Charades.

It’s funny you say that (first of all because it’s true) but secondly because our game this week kind of does that – going from Taboo into Charades as the game goes on.

This is a SNAP review for Times Up! Family Edition.

Game

Time’s Up! Family Edition is a new version of the classic game from R&R Games. This version is for three or more players, ages eight and up.

It takes about an hour to play, which is kind of long for a party game.

But the question is: is it worth it in this case?

Art

Well, let’s start with the art here. It’s just cards with words on them – although there are a lot of cards! – and a 30-second sand timer.

There is also a dry-erase scoreboard included inside the box lid, which is a really nice touch.

Mechanics

So let’s talk about how to play Time’s Up! Family Edition.

Split your group into teams, with at least two players on each team. The box has spaces for up to five teams in that dry-erase section.

Decide as a group if you’re going to use the blue words or the orange words on all the cards. Then shuffle 40 cards together to make your game deck.

The first Cluegiver takes the deck, and gets ready to get their team to guess as many words as they can in 30 seconds.

In the first round they can say anything except the words on the card – But they’re not allowed to spell words, give rhyming clues, or sing (sorry).

In this round they’re also not allowed to pass – but their team can keep guessing until they get the word right! Or until they run out of time.

At the end of 30 seconds, they keep the cards their team guessed correctly, and hand the remaining deck to the next team’s Cluegiver.

Keep going around to each team with 30 second turns, until the whole deck of words runs out. Each team tallies their score for this first round. Now, review what all the words were – literally read them all out again – shuffle up the same 40 cards, and start the next round.

In round two, a Cluegiver may only say a single word as a clue. But they can use sound effects or hand motions! And they are allowed to pass. However, their team only gets one guess! If they get it wrong, set that word aside, to be shuffled back into the deck when time is up.

Again, take turns from team to team until all 40 cards have been guessed, then tally up your scores for round two.

In the third round, you’ll go through the same deck one more time. But now, each Cluegiver is not allowed to say ANY words! They can only use sounds and other non-verbal cues. But they’re still allowed to pass – and their team is still only allowed a single guess per card.

Tally up the correct guesses again after the third round, then see which team did the best over the course of all three rounds.

There is an additional way to play, if you can’t make even teams. With three, five, or seven players, you can make a sort of “temporary team”, where each player gives clues to the person on their left, and correct answers are stacked in a pile between the two players. At the end of each round, each player adds the cards on their right and on their left to get their total for the round.

Expectations

So Andrew, what did we expect from this game?

Well, if any of this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve played a game like this before with our adult friends called Celebrity – and you might have, too – where each person would write down the names of like, five celebrities, and put them in a shared pile. (We talk about this in podcast episode 35!)

It’s a ton of fun, but it’s so hard to clue people on words they don’t know, or names of people they’ve never heard of before.

I was really nervous this might not go over well with our kids and we’d just end up staring at each other. I had no idea if domain knowledge was going to be a problem – because it often is with these kinds of guessing games. Just too many words that kids don’t know.

Surprises

What surprised us about this game?

Like you said, we’ve played this game before, and others like it. But we never tried something quite like this with our kids.

And honestly I have to say this game was awesome. In this case, the fact that we have the Family Edition here really shines. We had a great time – and the words are really well chosen in the decks: it’s ones like “party” and “racecar” and “Harry Potter”.

Your kids may run into a handful they don’t know, but it’s going to be very rare that that happens.

As each game moves more and more to sound effects and hand motions, it just gets sillier and sillier – and consequently funnier. But also easier (at least for the guessers) because you’ve seen all of the words before! You’re no longer choosing from a deck of mystery words, you know that you’re limited to the same 40 words you saw in that first round.

Recommended?

Do we recommend Time’s Up! Family Edition?

Yes! If your kids are old enough to read, they are old enough to play this game. It even plays well at just three players! We tried it that way, and one of our kids even said they prefer it that way.

It will probably take you an hour to play, which could be too long for some families. If that’s the case for you, cut down your number of cards from 40 to maybe 20-25, and you’ll be good to go, even with your younger kids.

But at the full 40, you can even play with just adults – we brought it on a recent trip and played it with non-gaming friends, who sent me messages days later asking about “that guessing game we played.”

They thought it was a hit, and guess what, we do too.

We rate Time’s Up! Family Edition 4½ silly gestures out of 5.

And that’s Time’s Up! Family Edition – in a SNAP!

Find it on Amazon, direct from R&R Games, or at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Time’s Up! Family Edition from R&R 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?