SNAP Review – Turbo Kidz

[Andrew] Anitra, do you remember when our kids were younger, and we used to put them in our lap, and let them hold our hands, and pretend that they were driving?

[Anitra] Not really. I think maybe that was more of a you thing.

[Andrew] You know, like <<Motor revving noises and moving hands around.>> The kids used to love it, it was great!

[Anitra] Well, now, bigger kids and even adults can do a little bit of driving their teammates around in Turbo Kidz.

Game

This is a SNAP review for Turbo Kidz, a team racing game by Emmanuel Gauvain from Scorpion Masqué. The box says it’s for 2-6 players, ages seven and up.

Art

So, let’s talk about the art in Turbo Kidz.

[Andrew] First of all, it’s another new game based in the Zombie Kidz universe. So we see a lot of familiar characters on this box.

[Anitra] There’s a ton of these wipe-clean dry erase boards for the racetracks. There are car cards that grant special powers, and… blindfolds? Wait, what kind of game is this?

Mechanics

[Andrew] Well, let’s talk about the mechanics.

To play Turbo Kidz with four or more people, you split into two teams. The team with the youngest player chooses which racetrack to start with, and each team takes a copy of that track.

[Anitra] One person on each team is the Pilot – they’ll be using a marker to draw the path of your car through the racetrack. But they’re going to do it blind. The rest of the team will help to guide them – through talking and through using the Pilot’s non-dominant thumb like a joystick.

[Andrew] If the Pilot’s drawing crosses out of the bounds of the racetrack, your team has had an accident! One of the co-pilots needs to take the Pilot’s hand and move it back to the last checkpoint and restart.

[Anitra] Whichever team crosses the finish line of their track first, wins the stage! Whichever team wins two stages first, wins the game.

Once you’ve tried the first few stages, try the advanced features on later racetracks, like jumps, turbo boost, and oil spills.

[Andrew] Don’t forget about the car gadgets, too. Some give you an advantage your team can use, and others let you set up obstacles that the other team will need to avoid.

[Anitra] And if you don’t have at least four players, there’s a cooperative mode with all kinds of timed challenges to try.

Expectations

[Anitra] So what did we expect from Turbo Kidz?

[Andrew] I don’t even know. After reading the rules, I expected it to be… funny, if frustrating, depending who you’re paired with.

[Anitra] I was excited for another game in the Zombie Kidz universe. They’re always a little silly, but they build skills too. This one seemed like it was going to be a little sillier than most. And since it’s a team-based game, I assumed it would always be head-to-head competition.

Surprises

[Andrew] But of course, there were some surprises. For me, the first one was that there are tons of boards in the box. There are 16 boards! There’s only two copies of each, so you’ll only ever have two teams playing this game.

One thing that surprised me, was just how well our boys worked together. We played this game with lots of shuffled teams and team members. When I teamed up with our nine-year-old, it was a disaster. But when our twelve-year-old paired up with our nine-year-old, they actually beat us!

[Anitra] They did a great job.

[Andrew] One of the things that this showed me, was how to effectively communicate with different kinds of people. We’ve all heard that people take in information differently, whether it’s by listening, or by doing, or by seeing, and that’s how they learn.

But this game really showed me that the way I tried to give information to my nine-year-old was the wrong way to do it. Here, we figured this out through play. And honestly, I’ve learned some valuable things about how to communicate effectively with our nine-year-old, taught to me by our twelve-year-old.

I don’t want to get into a deep thing, but this is a really good lesson for me, and something I hope I’ll actually be able to carry forward into other games, and honestly, into life.

[Anitra] That got really deep. Parenting advice in your SNAP reviews! But, back to talking about Turbo Kids…..

I expected this game would be fun, but I didn’t expect just how much we would end up laughing every time we play. It’s a lot harder than it looks!

The cooperative mode was great, too. It’s the same play style, but now you’re a single team, trying to finish a timed challenge: like two courses of your choice in under four minutes, or a race with no accidents in under one minute. These cooperative challenges felt a lot like the challenges in Zombie Kidz Evolution that our kids love.

Even more so than the head-to-head races, the cooperative challenges encouraged us to look back after each race and determine what we could do better in the future.

Recommended?

[Andrew] So let’s talk about our recommendations. Turbo Kidz was pretty much always good for a laugh. And the simple instructions or ideas translate really well to any age, so grandpa or grandma can play with grandkids without too much trouble. The gadgets do add some complexity, so you might choose to keep it simple if branching out from your normal play group.

[Anitra] If you have multiple kids who love checking off boxes – and don’t mind working together – I’d highly recommend this game for the cooperative mode alone.

[Andrew] There’s really nothing in this game that we haven’t seen before, but it’s funny, it’s silly, and it’s inexpensive. You can get it this holiday for under $25 online.

We’re going to give Turbo Kidz 4 Go-Karts out of 5.

And that’s Turbo Kidz in a SNAP!

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Turbo Kidz from Hachette 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?