Hippo product reviews

Hippo was the first game from Helvetig that I purchased and it set off a chain event that has led to me owning most of their small box range. This game is small enough that it can sit on your flattened hand and not overflow (unless you have rather small hands like my youngest...) What is great about this size is that you can fit several of these into your bag, not take up much space and still have a good source of entertainment. The board itself, is several pieces of board, so you can lay them out, 12 in the row, or if struggling with space you can make it two rows of 6 and have it loop around.

The premise is simple, you have a set number of life preservers and your goal is to be the first player to place them all on the board. To do this, you roll the two dice and can place two life preservers down (one for each number rolled) or one life preserver on the number equaling the sum of the dice. But be careful, bump someone else's one off the board and it gets returned to you, bump off your own and you have to take the whole column (opponents life preservers and yours) and must then place theirs before your own. If lucky, you can place your buoy with the hippos and those cannot be knocked out of the board. This is an easy enough game to pick up and play but still has enough strategy and planning required to win the game.

We've had this for almost three years now and it is still going strong.