Cinegeek.com
Stephen Lackey
February 2006
USA
Out of the Box Games is one of those companies
that really knows how to present a game. the Apples
to Apples apple crate is really cool, and on the
other side of the coin they have several games
that are packaged small enough to easily take on
the road. Wallamoppi is another great package,
but is the game as good as the presentation?
Wallamoppi's closest cousin has to be Jenga. Basically
what we have here is a stacking game, set to a
timer. Players choose a colored wooden "kiwi
disk" from a bag. That becomes their color
for the duration of the game. Next the two players
begin randomly pulling disks from the bag and stacking
them in a pyramid shape. The bottom row goes 8
across and each subsequent row is reduced by one.
The box the game comes in, made of wood, is also
set up as the timer for each round. Once set up
the box is made up of a track that a marble rolls
down.
After the set up the player with the lighter colored
disk goes first. His opponent drops a marble into
the box and the player must pull a disk from the
pyramid and stack it on top in the center before
the marble reaches the end of the track. The players
take turns doing this until the tower falls. The
last player to stack a disk without collapsing
the tower wins.
The game is simple and quite fast paced once set
up. If you don't have a steady hand the set up
of the game and the actual game play can feel a
bit off balance. The random stacking is necessary
though to keep players from placing discs in the
pyramid strategically. A game could end very qucikly
if a player is unlucky enough to have none of his
color disk on the outside edge of the pyramid.
In the end the game is about luck of the draw,
a steady hand, and strategic disk removal. If you
can remove that one disk that doesn't cause the
tower to fall but leave it ready to with the removal
of the next one, then you have the idea. The nice
thing about the game is that it's not heavy on
brain work so you can have a conversation at a
party while you play. The unfortunate thing though
is that unlike Jinga, only two people can play,
and the set up between games can be a little lengthy.
We found that the game was great to have in a party
situation where another larger game was already
being played. So, if people showed up late, or
players were knocked out of the larger game, they
could play Wallamoppi while they waited for the
larger game to end. Wallamoppi is easy to teach,
fast paced, and fun, with the only limitations
being the lengthy set up and the low number of
players. The game plays a very specific part in
the party dynamic but it's so much fun your firends
will always want you to bring it around.
As I mentioned earlier I love the packaging for
so many Out of the Box games and Wallamoppi is
no exception. The entire game fits inside the the
wooden timer box. The wodden hockey puck like disks
are stored and played from a high quality black
bag and the track assembly for the marble is cool
to look at and assembles in seconds. The use of
the packaging as part of the game is brilliant
and the design is perfect. Easily another homerun
for Out of the Box in the presentation department.
Even with the mentioned flaws the simplicity
of the game makes it a must for a game night with
friends and the packaging is as I mentioned fantastic.
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