Tuesday 22 November 2016

Silly Sausage Family Game Review (age 7+).

Chosen as one of the Dream Toys for Christmas 2016, Silly Sausage from John Adams is possibly the daftest looking family challenge game you'll ever play. It tests your speed, co-ordination and memory skills and you do get to look completely silly while you're at it.


Silly Sausage is probably unlike anything you've ever played before. Although it has some parallels with other action games, it plays quite differently, and I think is actually more equal between age groups. Although recommended for age 7+, my 6 year old had the highest score here for a while, and now it's his Dad, but we are all fairly evenly-matched.


The packaging is great. It might be really hard to wrap neatly, but it's Christmas morning-friendly, mainly card with minimal plastic and it will only take 2 minutes to open. Silly Sausage requires 3 x AA batteries, which are included, but it will be set to 'demo mode', so they may not be full when you open your game.


The 'Silly Sausage' itself is a 1 foot long plastic sausage with a split across the middle of it's length that will stretch open by about 1cm. Pulling the two ends of the sausage apart is one of the 5 possible actions. Only having 5 actions makes it sound easier than it actually is.


The 5 available actions are Poke Me, Twist Me, Shake Me, Dip Me and Stretch Me. These are used for 10 different Play Modes.


The 10 Play modes is a little bit of a cheat. There are 3 different games, with various options:

Chipolata - keep up as you copy each move that Silly Sausage says in turn - slowly increasing speed. This is available as Single or Party, both with Turbo options. Our high score is a pitiful 26. Actually I have no idea if that's pitiful or brilliant, but it's taken us 2 weeks to get that far.

Banger - 'pass the parcel' among the players, when the music stops whoever is holding the Silly Sausage has to complete the moves correctly, before carrying on. The winner is the last player left. Obviously only available in multiplayer, but with normal or Turbo options. We are rubbish at this, anyone who can play it on Turbo is some sort of whizz!

Jumbo - memory is everything as you repeat an ever-increasing series of moves in the correct order. This one causes a lot of laughs as you attempt to 'do' the right move as well as remember it. Like Chipolata, this is available for Single or Party play, both with Turbo options.

Silly Sausage is great fun actually. There's no getting away from the fact there is an innuendo there which children are completely unaware of, but when a group of adults play then it is a lot harder to ignore, and there's much sniggering. This may well become a staple Hen Night Game, but it does also fully deserve the title Family Game, and it takes a lot of practise to master!

Silly Sausage is available to buy now in all good Toy Shops in store and online, with a recommended best age suitability of 7-12 (or 18+ adults on the pop). With an rrp £24.99, but on offer currently around £18 in several stores, this is also a great present for embarrassing your teenagers on Christmas morning, but giving them a few good laughs with their mates.

We were sent our Silly Sausage for review.

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