
Last week I reviewed some fun
Christmas songs by the people at Quest (if you missed it, you can find it
here - there are four songs, one for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales). This week, I have the pleasure of introducing you to the English Quest board game. Yes it may be Christmas Eve tomorrow, but if you are still looking for a present, this is a fantastically fun game that all the family can enjoy!
The idea of the game is to travel throughout England answering questions on history, land & nature, culture and modern life. Throughout your journey you must collect tiles to spell out the word QUEST, then make your way to London to answer your final question to win.
For every question you answer you gain a sovereign, which you can use to gain entry to London (congestion charge), to purchase your tile (if you answer the question correctly of course), or you can use 5 of them to fly between airports!
To give you an idea of the type of questions featured in the game I have included a sample card (you can find more
here):
Where a black dot is featured beside a question you can look up an accompanying booklet for some background on the answer (see right hand side of question card above).
There are also Jester cards which come into play if you land on a Jester symbol. These can be great and earn you free flights or sovereigns, or can be somewhat detrimental to your game!
We tested this game with two separate sets of people. The first was a couple of friends of our age. We had a great game, and even though I'm not English I managed to answer a lot of the questions. In fact it vastly improved my geography of the country! We loved how mobile the game is, as their toddler son needed to be put to bed we just shifted the game upstairs and continued to play! All in all the game went down very well.
The second lot of testers were our sisters, a boyfriend, my in-laws and my husband's Gran (91 years young!). I was somewhat retiscent as to how these varying age ranges would embrace the game, however it was a huge hit. There is such a range and breadth of questions that there is something for everyone, young and old! I also love the fact it's multiple choice so you
can make an educated guess if you aren't sure of the answer. Personally I found this a huge relief as I really do not enjoy games that make you feel intellectually inadequate.
The game itself is beautifully presented and is great quality. It would make a lovely gift for anyone! Of course there are other versions available too to cater for every nation (
Scotland,
England,
Ireland and
Wales) and even
Coronation Street fans.
The games retail at an RRP of £39.95, however if you purchase online you can snap up a great deal - £24.95 + p&p.
However it doesn't end there! If you follow your respective game on Twitter and Facebook you will get new questions every day to add to your game.
The demand for these fantastic games has been so great from around the world that a new version of the game has been introduced. You can now purchase the books in downloadable E-Quiz Book format, prices start at £1.95 for a single volume and peak at a mere £5.85 for the full book. I have had the pleasure of playing both the Scottish and English versions of this game, and they really are great fun. They are just the same questions as the full Quest board games, however they are made into a quiz format, complete with scorecards, for universal enjoyment. To check out a sample of the
English E-Quiz Book (with 96 questions) visit this
page.
I really loved this game and I can't wait to play it again. I highly recommend it as a gift, I would love to receive one. I reckon I have people's birthday presents for 2011 sorted now.
For more information on any of the Quest games, or to purchase, visit the relevant website -
Scotland,
England,
Ireland,
Wales,
Coronation Street.
Be sure to check out the relevant Facebook and Twitter pages for the game of your interest. Here are the links for the
English Quest Facebook and
English Quest Twitter pages.
One English Quest board game was received for the purposes of this review. All views expressed in this post are my own. I did not receive any other reward, financial or otherwise for this post.