Customer Reviews

39 Clues Search for the Keys Game By University Games

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

We got this game for our 8 year old son for Christmas. He loves the 39 clues books. He is also a very smart, gifted student. We thought this game would be more like the 39 Clues books, but it is not at all.

This game is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone without a PHD in geography to play. The game consists of clue cards and the player has to guess the city based on the clue. It would be one thing if the cities were ones known to 8 year old children, such as New York, Los Angeles, Paris, etc. But this game has them guessing cities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Nom Pen, Jakarta, Angkor, Accra, Libson, etc. The game is poorly put together (the "Keys" you earn are actually boats) and the colors of the "keys" are different than what is stated in the directions. The game takes forever to play, and has no discernable end. After an hour and a half of my 8 year old and 11 year old playing the game with me and me having to give them every answer (often I had to look up the answers myself) we quit playing. The game is NOT fun to play at all, and feels more like an geography exam. We are going to purchase a more appropriate game for him tomorrow as a replacement. I would not recommend this game at all. Total waste of money.

Our kids (8, 10, and 12) were excited to receive several "39 Clues" presents for Christmas this year. As a family who plays a lot of challenging board games, we were eager to play this game and find out more about the "39 Clues" world.

Unfortunately, the game mechanic -- identifying world cities from clues on cards -- is neither fun nor engaging, and has limited educational value as well. If your 10-year-old has been studying the topic recently, she might know the "largest port on the west side of North America," but clues like "Famous food is lumpia" and "Most populated city in its country, but not the capital" will elicit frustrated shrugs from kids as well as parents. On the other hand, you may draw an "Adventure" card that tells you what a kite is.

Although the game equipment is well-constructed and attractive, it's odd that the pieces are of a strange boat-like shape instead of the planes described in the rules. The only fun we had with this game was trying to figure out what those were supposed to be.

If the game play was fun -- or at least interesting -- you might excuse the lack of "39 Clues" elements (characters? plots?). However, this just feels like it was thrown out to take advantage of the popularity of the franchise. That's a common problem, but we expected more from Scholastic and University Games, both brands we've trusted in the past. We certainly wish Rebecca Manning's spot-on review had been available well in advance of the Christmas season.

I have no idea why people have rated this game so poorly! Our family, including our 7 year old son, have thoroughly enjoyed it! There are enough hints to make the tougher questions easier to figure out and the luck of the draw extends game play to give kids a chance to beat adults. One reviewer was totally wrong- the answers are on the box, no need for Google.... read the directions.

My eight year old daughter bought this game and was very excited about playing it. Two major problems, the question "clue" cards are extremely hard and very few could be answered by a child or adult. Second problem -- it doesn't tell you the answer so unless you are going to google every question to find out if the answer is correct, it basically makes for an impossible game. We got the game out of the box, set it up, read the directions, then read about 5 of the clues and realized there was no way this was going to be an enjoyable game for the 3 eight year olds that wanted to play.

My son really wanted this and I had to look high and low to find it. We played it the first time on Christmas. There are some hard questions though so we thought about making our own rules by adding internet searches to your turn and limiting it to like 3 "lifelines". We thought it would speed up the game and still keep it fun. Younger kids could never play it but they could with our rule changes. It is educational and my son still likes it.

As the other reviews have said this game is no fun. I got it for my 13 year old son. After a few minutes of playing it we realized we could not answer any of the questions. The questions were very hard and most of the clues made little or no sense. So now this game will sit on the closet shelf forever untouched. We actually got cars as our tokens but the instructions clearly identify them as being air planes. Stay away from this game. Total waste of money...

This is a good game if you are out to learn, but my kids (14, 12, and 9) got very frustrated because they knew hardly any of the clues. Even my husband, who has a minor in Geography, had trouble. Also, the play itself doesn't flow very well--we changed some of the rules to make it work better. Good idea, but not very "playable."

My daughter, a huge 39 Clues fan, was excited to receive this as a gift. Excitement quickly turned to frustration as we struggled through this game. The clues are ridiculously hard for children and adults alike. Some, even after knowing the answer still didn't make sense! This game is a complete waste of money. It misses its target audience and is an embarassment to the 39 Clues franchise.

My 10 year old son received this game for Christmas and was excited. The excitement died quickly as the first 5 or so clues were impossible to answer. We decide to extend the time and pull out the laptop. Each player was able to use the internet to aid in answering the questions. This made it possible to answer some of the questions that would have otherwise been impossible. It still was not the most exciting game, but it definately made it more fum.