Game Like a Mother

Quick Take: It feels like it takes forever to play, there are tiny pieces, the balls you place on a flat surface are prone to rolling off the board, the rules are a not entirely clear, and the entire point of the game is to make a weird baby doll. However, if your child loves L.O.L. dolls they will love this game. Make a couple easy adjustments to the rules and the game is halfway reasonable. I like that they really utilize what makes L.O.L. dolls special and the game itself is both unique and very on-brand. 

How to Play: Your goal is to be the first to build a matching L.O.L. doll set by collecting tokens of the same color on their collector cards. Place four tokens at random in each of the surprise balls you then place on their designated spots on the board. Each player selects a baby bottle mover and begins at the Start! square. They take turns spinning the spinner and depending on the spot they land on they either open a surprise ball and take one token of their choice, trade a token with another player, mix up all the balls on the board, either steal an item from an opposing player or take a new item from a surprise ball, peek inside a surprise ball, or spin again. Trade, steal, and collect tokens until you have a matching set and then you win!

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Variations: To the game makers' credit, they make it easy to remove the spinner from the center of the game, where you will knock the little L.O.L. balls every time you use the spinner unless you move it to the side of the board. Also, it takes long enough to figure out which tokens are in which balls without having two Mix Me! spots on the board. If you treat those as Unbox Me! spots and never move the balls from their original location you will have a much happier game. You collect tokens much more quickly this way and the game can actually end in 20 minutes. Otherwise it drags on. This game is not involved enough to warrant taking 40 minutes to play. Also, you're supposed to trade out the baby bottle movers for a doll when you have selected a doll token. Don't do this. The dolls fall over constantly and don't work well as tokens and although the rules don't speak to this, I assume it means you can't trade the doll tokens. It's just unnecessary and doesn't add anything to the games besides confusion.

Similar Games To Check Out: Hatchimals EGGventure Game, Disney Princess Enchanted Cupcake Party Game, Disney Princess Magic Pop-Up Castle, Rat-A-Tat Cat

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