Do you like watching television quiz shows and shouting answers at the screen? There are some great ones on the tv for entertaining watching and now you can play some of your favourites as board games at home with your friends and family. We were delighted to try out a game based on a tv show that we have watched from time to time and enjoy (the kids as well) – Tipping Point.
Tipping Point, the board game, is a family quiz game based on the highly popular ITV television family game show presented by Ben Shepherd. Players must compete in two rounds to gain as many counters as possible by answering general knowledge questions and the unpredictability of dropping tokens into a machine to win cash. The winning team goes on to compete in the final round to try and win the jackpot counter. Tipping Point the board game is suitable for 3+ players or teams, age 10+ and has a playing time of around 60 minutes.
In the box:
- Electronic Tipping Point Machine (requires 2x AA batteries – not supplied)
- 110 Question Cards (80 blue / 30 red)
- 80 Tokens including team colour, jackpot and forfeit tokens
- Instructions
Tipping Point isn’t technically a board game, it is a tabletop quiz game that uses an electronic Tipping Point machine. Out of the box, it does require some quick assembly before you can play. It requires 2x AA batteries (not supplied) to be installed in the Tipping Point machine, you will need a cross head screwdriver to remove the battery compartment cover. Once the batteries are installed, slot the three parts of the Tipping Point machine together. Load the machine with 28 of the black/silver tokens (14 on each level – there is a line not to cross) with the remaining tokens placed in a draw pile on the table. The question cards need separating into red and blue piles and both sets shuffled.
Players then get into 3 or 4 teams (each team must have at least 1 player). Each team is then assigned a team colour: blue, green, red or yellow and given the corresponding token.
The game is played in rounds. All players play in the rounds 1 and 2 with the highest scoring player/team going on to play in the final round.
To play Round 1, each player/team is given 3 black/silver tokens and takes a blue question card (has 6 questions on it). Turn on the Tipping Point machine with the switch on the base and the token shelf should start moving. The player/team who has the youngest player starts first and asks the other teams the first question from their blue question card. The first team to shout out their team colour gets to answer the question. If the question is not answered correctly that team places one of their black/silver tokens in a penalty pot. If the question is answered correctly that team can opt to put one of their black/silver tokens into the Tipping Point machine or pass to another team to do so.
When dropping tokens into the Tipping Point machine, they are dropped into one of the four Drop Zones. Any tokens that are knocked off the shelf and paid out are kept by the team that dropped in the token.
Play then goes around the table to the next team and they ask a question from their card to the other teams. Play continues until all teams have used up their three black/silver tokens.
When all players have used up their tokens, Round 1 is over and it’s time to move on to Round 2. Round 2 is played with some slight changes. Freeze and lose tokens are added to the machine and tokens added to the machine are taken from the draw pile rather than the teams pots. Play continues until all teams have asked the 6 questions on their cards.
At the end of Round 2, the team with the highest number of tokens goes into the final end game to compete to be the winner.
For the End Game, the machine is loaded with 28 tokens as before. The lucky team or player that has reached this stage drops in the Jackpot token onto any of the 4 drop zones.
The object of the End Game is to get the Jackpot token out of the machine. To do this the team needs to win as many tokens as they can to be able to drop into the machine and try to get the Jackpot token out. The other teams take it in turns to ask a total of 6 multiple choice questions from the red question cards – answering an easy question correctly earns the playing team 1 token, a medium question earns 2 tokens and a hard question earn 3 tokens. After winning tokens, these can be placed into the Tipping Point machine to try and eject the Jackpot. If the Jackpot token is still in the machine after all the tokens have been dropped, you lose.
Overall, we have loved playing Tipping Point – it is exciting and fun. With over 650 questions to answer on a variety of different topics, it is suitable for family play, excellent quizzing fun combined with the unpredictability and luck of dropping tokens to try and knock others off the shelf.
The machine is easy to set up and the rules are very easy to understand. The questions are quite varied and have different degrees of difficulty so that children (aged 10+) and adults can play together without any real difficulty – obviously everybody isn’t going to be able to answer every question as that would ruin the enjoyment.
Tipping Point is an excellent fun game tv show based board game. It has hours and hours of playable fun as there are plenty of questions (650) to go through.
An excellent family game for playing together as a family or with friends.
Can you beat the other teams or players before taking on the Tipping Point machine? You will have to play and find out. One thing I can guarantee is, win or lose, you will have lots of fun.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £27.99
For more information, visit www.johnadams.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
Disclosure: I received this item for free for the purposes of writing an honest and impartial review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.
