Rubik's Race

I spent many hours as a child trying to complete all six sides of a Rubik's cube, only to discover the only way I was ever going to do it was to dismantle the whole thing and try and put it back together again. Cheating, in other words.

Thankfully Rubik’s Race - the game version of the Rubik’s cube - is a lot easier, less frustrating and the pace of the game is substantially quicker.

The idea behind Rubik’s Race is quite simple. Two players each have a board full of coloured tiles. While facing each other they have to slide the tiles so that the nine in the centre match the pattern determined by a shake of the scrambler (on the right of the picture). The first to do so wins. There are a number of variations of the game of varying complexities.

The verdict

We've had the game for several months but I haven't been able to play it properly until recently. Although the game is for ages five+, at eight and a half IJ simply found it too difficult. So instead I had to try it out with family over Christmas.

I really like the game. It's fast paced and great fun, especially if you have a competitive streak. The main downside I found with the game is that the board is made of three separate pieces which often came apart mid-game, which was annoying. Also, sometimes there were not enough colours on the board to match the design on the scrambler. With only four tiles for each colour, designs requiring five tiles of one colour were simply not possible. A drawstring bag for the tiles would also have been helpful for ease of storage.

So the game had a couple of design flaws but I really liked it even though I couldn't play it with my daughter.

Overall score: