UFO Alarm is a fun new board game from University Games. The concept is unique and different to any other board game that we’ve played, and my kids loved it!
UFO Alarm involves running away from an alien spaceship, and it comes complete with the space ship that can actually catch your playing pieces and suck them up, like an alien abduction.
To set up the game, first you need to apply stickers to the dice and playing pieces and put together the space ship – which is fairly quick and easy. You will need 3x AAA batteries which are not supplied, so bare that in mind if buying as a gift and maybe give the batteries too.
Once set up, you have:
- Alien spaceship, complete with alien at the top
- Board
- 2 Dice
- 4 Coloured farmer play pieces per player (for up to 4 players) – Red, Green, Blue and Yellow
- Instructions book
The game is recommended for players of 6 and above, and I can see why that recommendation is there since it is a bit more advanced than a simple board game for young children, but after playing alone with Z (7), we did play all together with the younger kids too (4 and 5) and they were fine with it and were able to follow the rules and pick them up quite quickly.
It’s a game that I would buy for children of around 6+, but if they have younger siblings it won’t be unsuitable for them to join in.
To play the game, the farmers must come out from their coloured farm houses and then move around the board hoping to escape from the space ship. The board is fairly large and has lots of fun detailed like secret passageways between farm houses, which you can see below, and even an outside toilet cubicle where the farmers can go to hide from the space ship (since the space ship can’t enter there).
To play the game, there are two phases. The first phase involves just one dice, and involves getting everyone’s farmer pieces out of their farm houses. Then you move on to the second phase: Alien attack!
The alien attack phase involves two dice, and depending on the combination you get you can move the space ship a certain amount of spaces, or move your farmer pieces a certain amount of space.
You can also roll a space ship and a light beam, which means you can use the space ship to abduct any player’s piece of your choice, or roll a farmer and light beam which means that your farmer is frozen in fear and misses a turn. Normally kids are not happy to roll miss a turn – but since they found the “frozen in fear” idea really funny, they were laughing each time they got this, especially if the space ship was quite near to their piece because they knew those farmers really would be scared.
The UFO Alarm game offers plenty of fun for all the family, and takes around half an hour or so to play – so it’s a fairly long game compared to others.
The coolest feature has to be the space ship – any kid would love this! It is really easy to operate (press the top where the alien is sitting) and fun to watch the piece being sucked up. Sometimes the space ship will flash a light and fail to suck up the piece – this happens only quite rarely but adds more suspense to the game, as a couple of times someone thought they were about to win, only to find the space ship had other ideas.
UFO Alarm is available for around RRP 24.99. Click here to see it on Amazon
We were sent the game for review
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
This looks like a lot of fun, I don’t want my baby to grow up too quickly but I do look forward to the time when we can sit down and play games like this.
#TriedTested
I love buying my kids games, and I think this one is going on my wish list #ToyTuesday
This would be perfect for my son for Christmas! Thanks for linking up with #TriedTested
This looks like a fun game, we are looking to purchase some new games this Christmas and I’m sure my two children would love this one #ToyTuesday
It looks like great fun!
Thanks for sharing your review on #TriedTested this week x
This looks brilliant, i’m sure all of the children will love it!
I shall definitely be telling the children about this game.
Thanks for linking up to #ToyTuesday
I recently picked up a second hand copy of this game, but no instruction booklet. Would anyone be able to help me out with a scan/PDF?