Family Matters Board Game gets Nana Rockin'

Does your family play board games?  My kids are still young enough to enjoy a little forced family togetherness and I'm always bringing new games home.  Some of them are hits and others end up earning me the nasty lip curl glare from my nine year old.

We were asked to to review the game Family Matters and I'll admit the description suckered me as a mom wanting to communicate with my family.  I didn't expect my kids to engage the way they did ....

Family Matters™ invites players aged 7+ to share stories, discover trivia, do funny things and creatively explore 140 make-believe, location-based issues ("Fake Family Crises") from totally new perspectives.

We traveled in the "family car" around a board where we found ourselves in hilarious episodes where even Nana got up to imitate the drama of a full on 4 year old tantrum that had occurred earlier in the day.  We had to guess who she was....  It wasn't hard to guess but it was pee your pants funny to see my mother jumping around the room pitching a fit and throwing herself on the couch just as Kat had only a few hours earlier!  I have it on video but have been threatened to be disowned if I release it...

The "fake family crisis" cards were interesting.  My children are 9,6 and 4, and we found ourselves in discussion about peer pressure, drugs, and other such issues that make me fear the teen years!

The object of the game is for everyone to have turn in the driver's seat and help the family through a crisis before turning the wheel over to the next driver.  The winner of the game gets to their "weekend wish" to come true.

In our case, Henry won and treated us to a movie with junk food.  The junk food was the major stipulation here.  Had I won my wish was to have the family clean the basement together ...

On the surface the concept of this game seemed a little hokey to me but we actually did have quite a bit of fun and we talked about things that we would not have ordinarily discussed.  The game is recommended for ages 7 and up but we were able to play with our 6 and 4 year old just fine because they love to play family games.  The "weekend wish" was key and now Kat and Henry ask to play it all the time now.