Peek-a-Mouse

Where Our Story Begins

Peek-A-Mouse is a game aimed at kids between 5 and 9 which centres around using a torch to hunt through a house and find and remember the locations of different items. In the second stage of each round you will answer a series of questions about what you have seen. This is a game unlike any other. The box becomes the mouse house that you play the game inside. You use a torch to peek through the windows and take mental notes of where each token is.

Basic Gameplay

This is a game about quickly finding the different components and then remembering where in the house they are. There are two stages to each round, there is the seeking, and then the quizzing.

During the seeking part, you will place all the wooden tokens into the hole in the top of the house, give the game a shake to evenly distribute them and then all gather around the windows ready for the seeking to begin. The torch is placed in the top of the house and switched on. It automatically turns off after 30s, and you will have until it turns off to peer through the windows and memorise where all the tokens are. For added difficulty, these tokens are double sided and you must also remember whether it was the green brick or the red lego brick for example that was showing.

In the second phase you will ask questions. Before each round, you will randomly put tokens phase down onto the board in the question spots. At the start of the question phase you will flip all the tokens face up and ask the associated questions. These will be things like “is the ring in the bathroom?” or “where is the key?”. These will have you racking your brains hunting over memories to see if you know where that pesky key token was. Each correct answer is a point, and you can set the end point of the game at a certain number of points or in our case we just played 3 rounds and then scored ourselves.

If you have the full complement of players you will find this much easier, but even the best minds can be seriously tested when trying to remember different components in four rooms and where everything is. This is a game that can be fun for all the family, and definitely one that you will enjoy playing with your kids.

Components

This game has some cool components, the box is made into the game. You create the mouse house by placing the insert into the lid and arranging the board and box on top. There are high quality and bright images all over and graphically this is a joy to behold. The torch is easy to operate and the battery life so far seems to be long lived for us after over a year of owning it.

The wooden tokens are screen printed and clear and easy to read. They are pretty chunky and will make a satisfying tumbling sound as they roll around in the house prior to each seeking phase. My only slight is that some of the cardboard pieces like the kitchen table are not quite as hardwearing. Our table has taken a few hits and needs a bit of surgery to remain upright.

Replayability

I feel like with a kids game this is slightly less important. Kids will enjoy what they enjoy countless times over, which is why we have to watch them jump in the pool 4000 times a day when on holiday. The squeals of delight never come down in decibels. However I will say that with the random way the tokens are distributed, you will not get two games the same. Similarly there is also randomness in how the questions are put together for the second phase of each round.

Additionally there are a bunch of different levels of difficulty, the two sided question boards allow for easy and difficult questioning depending on the ages of the players. There are also green, orange and red tokens which provide even more difficulty. Some of the tokens look more similar than others meaning careful peeking and remembering is required to prevent slip ups. This game has levels to it, and will keep you engaged even as an adult.

Round Up

If you want to pick up a game that is nothing like anything you have ever played before and will be enjoyed to the point where all around the table will be shouting with delight then you need to check out Peek A Mouse. This has been a hit with all that we have introduced it to, and it is something that will get trotted out whenever we have players in the right age group. The varied levels of difficulty will really keep kids from all ages engaged.