Disney Pictopia Board game Review

Sometimes the family don't want to play the same kind of games as me, not everyone's a fan of space ship battles, or linking train routes, even catching fish with penguins.  This a game that most people will enjoy though.  Disney Pictopia is a family Trivia game for 2-6 players with a recommended age rating of 7 up.

 It comes in a nice shiny box, with plenty of pictures of various Disney images, you forget how many things they own and have created until you start playing this.

 As it says on the back of the box, you can get a free app to add to the game, you do not need it, and it plays fine without it, but its a nice touch at adding some more to it.

Inside you will find....

 A high quality board, slim but long, which is unusual for the board game world, but its good as it cuts down on the required space.

 You massive stacks of question and answer cards, a dice that only goes up to 3 strangely, some mickey mouse style dials for matching answers and some counters and playing pieces.

 These dials, "just like X-Wing" Olivia said, well yes...a similar style, you use them at select times to dial in your answer and keep it hidden until it is needed.

 The board is full of clear symbols, and some nice Artwork.  Disney fans will fall in love with this game.

 The playing pieces you will use in the game are nice clear colour plastic Mickey ears.  I am always green, its my favourite colour.

 Here we have the numbered tokens.  These are used when you wager.  They number from 1-5, and when you have used them all, they get returned.  If you are confident you can answer a question easily, wager high as that is how many squares you will move if you are correct.  It causes some surprising tactical decisions, do I want to burn my high numbers early, or keep them until I am on a dead cert?

 You may have noticed the different symbols on the board, these correspond to a different kind of question.  On your turn you are the Host, you roll the die and move that number of spaces then look at the symbol, draw a question card and let the other players see the symbols.  The hard part is you must wager BEFORE the question is asked, so if you don't know all there is to know on Disney dog movies don't bid your 5! Once everyone has wagered read the question that corresponds to the symbol you landed on, read the question aloud to the other players.  You have group questions with the square symbol on them.  There are 3 variations.  1, all players work together to select one answer. 2 all players work together to select 2 answers, or finally all players work together to select 3 answers.

 You also have individual questions,  All players except the host dial in their answer and keep it secret until everyone has selected their response.  The last question type are the spotlight questions.  These are about the host, and people have to guess what YOU would like, or think.  It may show four characters and say who do I think I sound like? that sort of thing makes it really fun with some amusing responses and arguments due to some questionable choices.  If you got the answer right you move whatever you wagered. then the wager coin is discarded until someone runs out then everyone gets theirs back.

 As you can see looking at the cards they span a wide range of Disney properties, from TV cartoons, to their classic works, with live action films in between, with the wealth of Disney in modern culture, finding someone who doesn't know about the subject matter will be hard, so this goes to the making the game very all inclusive.

 The thin playing manual is simple to read and easy to understand, a few minutes and you will be playing, which makes it good for family gatherings as you don't have to spend ages explaining the ins and outs of things to everyone.  Could I teach my mother in law this? yes easily.  Could I teach her X-Wing? no probably not.  This is a game for gamers and NON Gamers as well which is another plus point.

The winner is the player who gets there playing piece to Disney Castle and complete the final challenge. which is a solo challenge question.  If you get it right you win, if not you move back on the board.  If there are multiple players on the castle for the final challenge and they all get it right there can be multiple winners.

  Setup and take down is nice and simple, and quick, you do not have many resources to manage.  and everything has  it s own space in the box it goes in.

 We played a two player game first to see how it went, and though it says it plays 2, you miss a lot, like the team challenges and so on, so this game is best played with as many as possible for full enjoyment.

overall, I had quite a bit of fun with this, and surprised myself about how much, and how little in places I knew about Disney.  Its a game the whole family can enjoy, and is going to be our Christmas day game of choice when the family come over to visit.  If you have a family that love Disney, this is a must have game for you, its so much simple fun and with the huge amount of questions and variations on each questions offers plenty or replayability. on it.

It has an RRP of £19.99 and you can grab it in your local Waterstones or online here