Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #343 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Trends Uk Ltd
• Dimensions: 7.09" h x 4.92" w x 4.92" l, 1.98 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
WobBally is a great new, fun game for family and friends for 1-6 players (aged 5 upwards). It consists of a tower of 98 very unstable balls and can be played in three different ways.

All versions start by placing the WobBally tower on a firm hard surface. The tower contains a ball-bearing, self-leveling device (fun in itself!) and once the tower is centered the clear outer cover on the tower can be removed and play can begin. Test your skills and patience by tapping the balls into the tower one by one. But watch out because the player who causes the tower to collapse is out of the game!

How to Play WobBally
Version 1: Each player takes turns to knock any coloured ball from the tower without the tower collapsing. When a player does knock over the tower, everyone shouts "WobBally" and that person is out of the game. Rebuild the tower and then take turns again until one player is left--the winner!

Version 2: Each player throws a numbered dice and the player with highest number goes first. Players then throw the coloured dice to determine what colour ball they have to knock out of the tower, but they can choose a colour from any level. Play continues as with version 1, until one player is victorious!

Version 3: This play combines the numbered and coloured dice. Each player has to throw both, selecting a colour to remove and the level to remove it from. So, for example, the dice may show a blue ball from level 4. If no balls are left of the colour shown on the dice, the player has to knock a ball off the top level level 7! Play continues until one player is left and is crowned the winner.

Box Contents
123 balls including spares
1 coloured dice
1 numbered dice
6 playing sticks
A game surround that ensures no balls are lost
All dice and sticks plus spare balls are very neatly encapsulated inside the centre of the WobBally tower.

Customer Reviews

Not a great new game for the family
We're always on the lookout for new family games that we can play together. Unfortunately, I don't anticipate this one commanding a lot of our attention.

On the plus side, the game is well designed and packaged - it all fits together neatly into its container; the wobbly tower wobbles suitably, and looks neat.

On the downside, the actual gameplay isn't that interesting. It is broadly similar to Jenga, in terms of trying to get balls out of the tower without causing it to collapse. However, the rules don't seem to deal with the fact that you are fairly likely to trigger partial collapses; you are also likely to knock more than one ball out at a time. Also, the time taken to set the game up seems to be as great or greater as the amount of time taken to play the game. And whilst it is generally nicely presented, there's a silly plastic barrier which is designed to go around the whole thing that is just naff.

A good concept. But it could possibly have gone through a couple more passes through the evaluation cycle before being released, in our opinion.

How to ruin Christmas day!
Well, let's put it this way; if you played this for the first time on Christmas Day you'd be arguing and shoving it back in the box within about 10 minutes!

The game is basically a spherical, brightly coloured, visually appealing version of Jenga. The balls are lovely to look at (a lot like gobstoppers) which if you have younger children in the house may be a problem.

The game is a cross between Jenga and Kerplunk. You have to build the tower of balls (and as it needs levelling first I recommend playing it on the floor). Once the tower of balls is "stable" (and I use the word loosely) the basic object of the game is to use slim lilac sticks as miniature snooker cues to tap the balls down into the centre of the tower. There are several ways of playing the game but each one of them involves the person that knocks the tower of balls down being out of the game. At
this point the remaining players are supposed to rebuild the tower and repeat the process until there is only one player left.

This didn't happen in our house. By the time we had built the tower so that it actually stayed up (after three attempts), then recovered the balls that had rolled off the coffee table and under the sofa, then placed the dog's rope lead around the game to trap the balls because the plastic barrier made for this purpose was useless, we couldn't bear to rebuild the tower so many times so basically tapped the balls in and then gave up.

Ten minutes later we relented, built the tower again on the floor, and tried again. As I type, my daughter (who obviously has a lot more patience than me) is still playing the game and so far nobody has sworn or burst into tears, so for children it's obviously not as infuriating as for adults.

The instructions are reasonably clear but they don't tell you what to do if another ball falls in at the same time as your ball, so we ended up just making our own rules up.

If we do get this game out on Christmas Day then we will at least know what to expect but I wouldn't recommend a first outing for it on a day when people are already feeling somewhat stressed!

All in all, not a great success; I think there are some basic design faults and the faff of rebuilding the ball tower each time is not rewarded by a fun game....sorry.

Sophisticated Family Fun
Numerous reviews and video clips already describe WobBally so I restrict comments to the game. Yes it's like `Jenga' but use of colours for a large number of balls allows for more sophisticated play options. It is good fun to play and exciting to watch the efforts of competitors with a precariously teetering stack rather than the static tower of `Jenga'. For WobBally I believe greater dexterity and steadiness is required for body and mind, and it is not for the clumsy or faint-hearted. The game is advertised as suitable for 5 years old to adult - but 5 seems a bit young, and in any case at that age there is a need for supervision to ensure balls are not taken as sweets. The stack is cleverly contrived but re-building is unlikely to be achieved by a 5 year old - and it can be irksome for an adult.

The game is nicely packaged and all components fit within itself making it easy to put away - so when next getting it out to play there should be no danger that bits are missing. However it is easy to lose balls during play, and the plastic surround strip provided is inadequate for prevention of spillage when the stack collapses - better to set the game on some form of tray. All in all this is an excellent product. I suspect there will be bumper Christmas sales for WobBally with gifts aimed at families rather than individuals.