mmcphee's Full Review: Fundex Games Fundex To Z Junior Electronic
As much as my son spends his money my oldest daughter hoards it. But when she finally decides to spend, she spends big. Recently she made a big addition to Toys R Us' bottom line by buying several new games. One of our new favorites is A to Z Junior.
The Game A to Z Junior is a game for 2 - 4 players or teams for players ages 6 and up. The game consists of an electronic, hand-held game board with the letters A through Z (X & Y share a button) and a deck of cards. To play, draw a card and read the category (1 - 4) as indicated by the lights on the game board. The player or team must name items that fit the category, such as shapes or things found in a locker. As these items are named players press the button that corresponds to the first letter of the word e.g. R for rectangle or B for book. For each card, players get 30 seconds to turn off as many lights as possible before passing to the next player. The game remembers which lights have been turned off for each team. The first player or team to turn off all of their lights wins. A to Z Junior requires three AA batteries, which are not included.
Our Experience We really love A to Z Junior! My kids picked up the concept quickly and were eager to play. The categories are kid friendly but fun for adults too. A typical card: things that grow on trees, hobbies, candy bars and American states. Some categories are easier than others, some have lots of possibly answers, and some are more limited. There have only been a few where Six and Seven haven't been able to come up with any answers, actors and pop stars come to mind, but those categories would likely pose no problem for slightly older players. This is a great game for getting people to think outside of the box.
As simple as the game sounds, it is actually more challenging for adults than I expected. The first question in a round tends to be the easiest since all of your letters are lit. By the time you get to the third question and are trying to come up with American Presidents, with a finite number of answers, the game is much tougher. While adults have an advantage of more exposure to potential answers in the category if you can't recall an answer for a letter you need it doesn't really help you. My daughters can beat me fair and square due in part to the luck of the draw when it comes to categories. Since you play on average 5 -7 rounds to clear all the letters the number of easy and hard categories seems to balance out for all players.
A to Z Junior workd well for teams. My four year old son plays quite well teaming up with someone else. For most categories he can come up with at least a few answers, but can't always identify the correct starting letter. Since answers need to be said aloud, the fact that Four can't keep his voice down doesn't matter. At times we all have trouble not shouting out answers when other teams are playing, especially when you think you have a particularly creative fit for the given category. Games take about 15 minutes, which seems to be just about the right amount of time.
Despite not being specifically designed for travel, A to Z Junior works well as a car game. We put the cards in a cup holder and pass the lightweight game back and forth. When we are done, the cards store in the bottom of the game board, which is always a great feature!
Room for Improvement There are a couple of extra "features" during game play. First is Free. If that button lights up at the start of your turn, you get to turn off any light you want. That ends your turn, which is disappointing to my kids, who would rather play than get one free square. The second is Steal. When that lights up you get to review your opponents' game boards and pick one to re-light their letters. You get 15 seconds, which is more than enough time to turn all of an opponent's lights back on. Surprisingly, my kids do not get too upset when someone turns on their lights, but again, they would rather play. It actually took us about 5 games to figure out the Steal feature because it wasn't well explained in the directions and once you understand the directions the actual execution doesn't make much sense either. I do wish that there was a setting to turn off the Steal and Free plays; my kids want to play by naming items that fit a category far more than they want a free letter or to sabotage an opponent. This would be especially helpful for when my daughter plays by herself. While not really designed as a 1 player game, it well let you press 1 for the number of players, in that game Steal doesn't really make much sense.
There is of course the potential for some arguments while playing A to Z. We try to be lenient with our interpretation of what is acceptable for a category. For schools supplies, can yellow folder be used to turn of the Y? The limited guidance from the rules is that for two word answers, such as Abraham Lincoln, you can turn off A or L but not both in the same turn. Perhaps Fundex purposely left the instructions vague so families can set their own rules on what fits and what doesn't. For highly competitive players, a few more examples of acceptable and not acceptable answers would probably be very helpful.
Final Thoughts We love A to Z Junior, despite the fact that there is some room for improvement. I do hope that they will consider additional card sets, although with 54 cards with 4 categories each, it will take a while until we have exhausted all of the categories.
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