Word Bandit is a word-spotting board game that comes with an exciting wheel-spinning letter machine! This is a brain-teasing family-friendly game that is suitable for aged eight and above, and for two teams of any number.
Inside this box, it comes with a Word Bandit machine, playing board, two playing pieces, sand timer, sticker sheet and instructions. It requires minimal assembly by sticking the stickers onto the Word Bandit machine which takes no time at all.
Each team picks a playing piece and puts it on the red START space. As you move around the board, the space you land on dictates which of the four games your team will play. One of the team pulls the bandit’s handle to spin the wheels each turn, and the opposition counts the score.
There are four easy word games to be played:
- 4 Rows – Winding Words (purple space)
Open the sliding cover on the machine to reveal four rows of letters, then pull the handle to spin the word wheels, which come up with a set of random letters.
The aim is to race the timer and find as many words as possible that wind around the grid of letters.
The letters of these words must follow-on either sidewise, up, down or diagonally – with words spelt in any direction, top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right or right to left.
- 3 Rows – Famous People (green space)
Open the sliding cover on the machine to reveal three rows of letters, then spin the word wheels to start the game.
The aim here is to find the INITIALS of as many famous people as possible during one turn of the timer, and the letters do not need to be touching in the grid. We all find this word game too hard to play as our general knowledge on famous people is very limited! This is definitely something we need working on!
- 2 Rows – Things That Begin With (yellow space) using two rows.
Spin the word wheel as before. Your playing piece is on a yellow space with a category printed on it (e.g. Boys’ Names). You must come up with as many words as possible in that category beginning with one of the letters on show. You can use any letter as many times as you like, as long as the words are different.
- 1 Row – Words Containing (red space)
Reveal just one row of letters, then spin the word wheels. Here, you have to call out as many words as you can that contain any two of the letters you have spun.
The letters contained in your words can be in any order, and repeating the letters in your words is okay.
If you find the face of the Word Bandit appears instead of a letter, then your team has one less letter to play with that turn. It’s unlikely, but if the Word Bandit appears on all three wheels (there is one face per wheel), the playing team gets a free spin.
Word Bandit is a fun family game that encourages players to think outside the box, to stay focused and sharpen their vocabulary! One of the key things for both of my children is to be able to spin the wheel! This little machine brings so much fun by just letting them have a go at it! I love that it encourages us to think as quickly as possible and also strategically not to land on the famous people category, which we all hate the most! This game will bring hours of multi-generational fun! For more information and stockists please visit www.drumondpark.com. It is available to buy from Amazon, Argos, Hamleys, Littlewoods, Smyths, The Range and WH Smith.
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own.