Price Range: $30
Age Range: 8+
No. of Players: 2-6
Time to Learn: 5 minutes
Time to Setup: 5 minutes
Reading Skills Needed: YES
Playtime: 20-30 minutes

Game Rating: ***

Game Review: Do your kids love the Ripley's Believe it or Not yearbooks as much as mine do? Or as much as it seems almost every elementary school age child does? It always makes me laugh to see the kids at my children's school in the library poring over the weird (and sometimes gross) pictures in the Guinness Book of World's Records, and Ripley's books. Well, this game takes weird and unusual facts and turns them into a board game in which each player is trying to collect an exhibit card from all 4 of Ripley's exhibits and exit the Ripley's museum first. Players move around the board by correctly deciding if a given Story Card is believable....or not. Each card allows a certain number of spaces to be moved; or, if you are feeling particularly brave (or foolhardy!) you can use your Ripley Effect Multiplier card for a chance ot double the number of spaces you can move!

This game looked more promising than it turned out to be, but it's still a fairly solid family game. We didn't come across any story or exhibit cards that were too disgusting, which is nice if you have a particularly squeamish member of the family. We did find that the shorter version of the game worked better -- you don't have to move off an exhibit space and then back on each turn to try for the exhibit card -- you can just stay on the space until you get it. My kids did seem to get a little bored with the game before we were even close to finishing, which surprised me given the variety of stories presented by the cards. But there it is: you just never know what will amuse your chidren (and yourself). This game was a little expensive at just over $30 for the small amount of play I suspect we will get out of it, but if you like Ripley's and interesting facts of the weird and wonderful variety, this might be just the family board game for you!