We are quite the game playing family.  We really enjoy all kinds of games – card games, board games, dominoes, even puzzles.  Playing games is one of the things we enjoy doing together the most.  In my opinion we still don’t play together often enough, but it’s a huge part of our family time.

A few weeks ago I received the most colorful game boxes in the mail.  My kiddos could hardly wait to try out our new “Do Tell: Family Edition” game.

We’ve played it a few times now, and every time it gets better.  I think it takes everyone a while to get used to the rules of a new game, and to figure out how everything works.  As we have gotten more familiar with Do Tell, it’s become more fun!

First off, the packaging for the Do Tell Family Game is excellent!  It all fits nicely into a box that you can easily get everything back into after it’s been unpacked.  What a concept, I know!  The game pieces all fit into a small plastic zip-close bag, and each deck of game cards comes with it’s own box. That means that the cards and pieces aren’t just floating around in the big box. The cards don’t get crinkled or bent while in the box. It’s GREAT! Do Tell Family Edition even comes with already sharpened pencils (full-sized!) and a notepad so you can open the box and play right away without having to search the house to find 5+ pencils or pens that actually write!

The Instruction Sheet gives you everything you need to know to play the game, at a glance.  The directions are straight forward and the general order of play in the game isn’t that different from other board games we’ve played, making it easy to get started.  It really does take about 5 minutes to learn how to play!

The object of the game is to get your family to bond together in fun and unique ways.  So, everyone wins when you play because everyone has the chance to share and learn about the other family members.  But, all good games have to have a WINNER (according to my 8-yr-old son, Mr Cutie).  The way to win is to be the first person to get your game piece to the sun space in the center of the swirling path.

What I noticed, as a mom with 2 busy boys who don’t always want to sit through a long game, was that the Do Tell Family Game path didn’t seem interminably long, so that we’d end up having to play the game well past the attention spans of the kiddos.  With a total of 36 spaces, rolling 2 dice at a time means that at most everyone would have 18 turns (if people only rolled snake eyes – 1 and 1 on the dice), and perhaps as few as 3 (if the same person rolled 6 and 6 on the dice – equalling 12 – each time).

The first time we played, we put an hour time limit on ourselves, not knowing if it would take longer since the game was new to us.  Whoever was leading at the end of the hour would be the winner.  That was a good plan for us to acquaint ourselves with the nuances of the game.  It turns out that the game takes us about an hour or so every time we play it, anyway.

Each space on the board corresponds to a card – if you land on a Star you draw a DO card and DO what it says; if you land on a Spiral you draw a TELL card and TELL whatever it says to; if you land on a Lightning Bolt you draw a RISK card and take the RISK of doing or saying whatever it tells you to do; if you land on a Tornado you draw a WILD card and it can be just about anything, just to shake up the game; lastly, if you land on a MIRROR space (looks like a snowflake kinda), everyone gets to participate and try to figure out what the person who drew the card would answer to one of the TELL card questions.

The game even provides for ways ‘out’ of any situation or question that someone doesn’t feel strictly comfortable with, which I appreciate since not everyone is OK with sharing the same things.

Do, Tell, Risk, Wild and Mirrors all make for some very interesting happenings around the table!

My daughter, Sweetheart, had a bit of a hard time with wanting to get the right answers for things.  As the Do Tell Family Game is not a trivia game, and the questions are about things you yourself would do or say, there is no right or wrong answer.  She also started out pretty shy with some of her responses, probably just not being sure what was ‘expected’.  But her brothers helped to remove these concerns by swinging the other way and being very uninhibited and boisterous in their game play.

My oldest son, BudBud, has a flair for the dramatic, and he likes to get silly, especially on the DO cards which usually require you to act out or show how you would respond in a certain situation.  I definitely can’t say that he doesn’t get into the game – the challenge is keeping him reigned in enough that we can actually continue moving forward with the game.  The timer included with the game helps with this, but even that can not tame the exuberance of his responses to some of the questions.  Not necessarily a bad thing, just a thing with which we had to contend!

My youngest son, Mr Cutie, is really just starting to get a grasp on reading in English (his French reading is very good), so reading his card on his own, and having to write the answers down for the mirror questions is the hardest thing for him. We don’t stress about spelling and we help him where he needs it – it really isn’t a big deal.  He, like his sister, wants to get the answers right, and like his brother (sometimes merely to compete with his brother!) enjoys going overboard with some things.  And he hates to lose in most things, so that’s always something we work on with ALL games right now!

My husband, Sweetie, and I have found it interesting to just play the game, and not to try to teach while playing the Do Tell Family Game.  We learn a lot about ourselves, each other, and the children, obviously, during the game.  But we’ve decided to not stop, right in the middle of the game, for the “lesson” that could come out of the response.  We DO use those responses, or situations mentioned in the game, at different times, around the dinner table, while driving in the car, etc., to point out a lesson to each other or to the whole family and often to ask about what we can learn from the things we all said.

Do Tell Family Edition is the kind of game that we’ll keep going back to, to go a bit deeper with our ‘play’ for the family. It’s fun while still being meaningful and adding real value by helping us to see into the minds and hearts of the others a bit.  I am not sure the kiddos will want to play it every game night, because it does have the personal side to it and not everyone wants to share like that all the time.  The game is easy to play, even when the answers aren’t always easy to come up with.  What’s more, it looks great (bright colors, well-printed and easy to read cards, sturdy game pieces, etc.) and packages up nicely.

We’re looking forward to having the Grandparents come up in December and playing this game with them.  Dad is just hoping that having a few more people to play with will mean that he’s NOT last AGAIN (he’s never gotten more than 1/2 way around the path before someone wins… that happens when you roll 2s and 4s and 5s most of the time!).

The Do Tell Family Game would be a great gift for friends and family with children ages 8 and up, and would be a valuable addition to any game collection.  I’m excited to recommend this game and to partner with DoTell to offer The Do Tell Family Game in my OpenSky Shop.

And keep an eye out for my upcoming review of the Do Tell original game!

Do Tell sent me the Do Tell Family Edition Game to review and keep for my family. I received no other compensation for this review, and the opinions stated here are my own.