Master C is a five year old boy. It’s therefore to be expected that he has an obsession with poo at the moment. It’s one of his favourite things to shout out at inappropriate moments, and for about six months now he seems to have an obsession with calling me “Professor Poo Poo Pants”. I’m trying to follow the parenting course advice of not reacting to the name calling in the hope that he will finally get bored and move on to something else. I’m not sure he ever really will though!
I’m therefore not at all sure if agreeing to review the game Poopyhead with the kids was such a good idea. They’re both at the ages now where they like us all sitting down and playing games together, although Master C can still be a bit disruptive at times. I therefore thought that something that really appealed to one of his current obsessions might help with his concentration span, but it actually was Little Miss C who kept pestering me to play the game once it arrived.
The basic premise of Poopyhead is quite simple – it’s about going to the toilet and doing everything in the correct order. When you consider that professionals advise that when you have children who are having problems adapting to going to the toilet you make sure you talk about going to the toilet lots, and in some cases even have an open door toilet policy in your household, the game actually makes a lot of sense.
Poopyhead is a card based game, where you have to play the cards down in the correct order as fast as you can, whilst also taking into account the colour of the cards. The correct order is as follows: toilet, poo, toilet roll, wash hands. Cards are divided up between all players and the first person to start has to play the orange toilet card. Players do not go in any order, but next someone has to play the poo card in another colour (so green or blue) and so the game continues. Once someone has played the washing hands card you start all over again with another toilet card. The game continues until someone has either used up all their cards, or can’t go anymore. At that point they push the whoopee cushion to signify that they have won the round. The person left with the most cards is considered to have lost and has to wear a poo on their head. The game comes with five poos, so you play five rounds before working out who the overall loser of the game is.
One nice thing about Poopyhead is that there are variants so that you can play with just two players. There are so many occasions where one of the kids wants to play a game with me and yet the other one doesn’t, so it’s nice when I find a game that I can play with just one of them.
It took LMC a little while to get to grips with the aim of the game, possibly because (shamefully) we haven’t actually played all that many card games with her yet. What was good about the game was that I found we could actually slow it down until she got to grips with it – and we did so by making everyone take turns to play a card, and if they couldn’t play then it just passed to the next player round the table. It really helped get her confidence levels up with what she was doing.
For Master C, the playing of cards in order didn’t really interest him, and he also had no interest at all in wanting to win, because instead he wanted to be Poopyhead. Of course he did! I can therefore see us doing a reverse version where the first person to finish gets the Poopyhead crown instead.
Overall, it’s a good game though, and certainly one that will appeal to those poo obsessed children who may not be so interested in more traditional games that you might play as a family. The subject matter might not be for everyone – I’m yet to see my mum’s face if the kids suggest playing it with her for example – and I do think it needs to come with a warning so any parents who play don’t accidentally answer the doorthe postman mid game, as the consequences can be interesting to say the least!
Poopyhead is from Sambro and is available to buy now. RRP is £15.99, but it can be found for less. At the time of writing Amazon are selling it for £9.99 online here.
Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Poopyhead for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.
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