Pass the Pandas, Fairy Prank, and Connecto Games Review

Get ready for game night when you break out three new games from UltraPro!

Pass the Pandas is a dice game for two to five players ages 6 and up. The number of players you have determines the number of dice each player gets. Each of the dice contains six sides: three sides with images (a panda, a bamboo, and a water drop), and three blank sides. Players take turns rolling the dice, removing any water drops rolled (because water evaporates), passing any pandas rolled to other players, saving any bamboo for the Bamboo Challenge, and keeping all blank dice. For a Bamboo Challenge, each player, on their turn, must roll at least the same number of Bamboo as the previous player. If you don’t succeed, you take the difference in Bamboo dice from the previous player. Whenever a player has no dice left at the end of their own turn or at the end of another player’s turn, the game is over and that player wins. The instructions offer three variants for advanced players. The game comes with 20 six-sided dice and a rulebook.

Fairy Prank is a game where two to six players ages 8 and up have to guess which item is missing from inside the box. There are 10 items, and each player selects one to add to the box. You can play with only a few items in the box or all 10. Then one player takes the role of fairy and secretly removes one or more items from the box. Once the item is hidden and the box is closed, the other players get to guess. They can’t open the box, but they can shake it and listen to see if they can guess what items remain in the box. Correct guesses score that player one point. For every incorrect guess, the fairy scores a point. Now it’s time to reset and play another round. When a player has marked a single item three times on their score sheet or has marked six different items, that player immediately wins. You can also fill the fairy box with items from around the house and make your own treasure box. There are also alternative rules for playing with just two players. The game comes with a score pad, a wooden stick, a marble, a diamond, an eraser, a paperclip, a die, a piece of felt, a rope, a spring, a metal ring, 10 item tokens, two blank item tokens, a treasure box, a starting player token, and instructions. 

Players will get connected when they play Connecto. In this game, you find the items shown on your card and connect them to items on your board. As you connect, you’ll be drawing an image. Can you guess what the image is? To help you ease into the gameplay, the deck of challenge cards includes three tutorials so that players get familiar with connecting items, circling items, and drawing curves. Once a player thinks they know what it is they’ve drawn, they write down their answer on their board and flip over the timer. This gives all other players just 30 seconds left to connect and decipher. Players who guessed correctly circle one star on their board. The player who turned over the sand timer gets an extra star if they also guessed correctly. However, that player can lose a star if they made a wrong guess. The boards are also double-sided – one has images in color and one has black and white images. This adds an extra challenge. At the end of eight challenges, the player with the most stars wins. There are alternative instructions for playing with teams, cooperatively, or solo. The game comes with 96 cards, five double-sided individual boards, five Dry-Erase markers, a 30-second sand timer, and instructions. You can play the game with one to 10 players ages 8 and up.