Peekaboom Review

“Hey… what’s that fizzing sound… *Gasp*! Is that a Fuse!?”

<insert Mission Impossible theme tune here>

“This can’t be good. It’s Ok, we’re reviewing Peekaboom. We’ve trained for this.”

*clears throat*

“SNIP!”

“Snip!?”

“Snip! Snip! Snip! Why isn’t this working!?”

Peekaboom is a quick little game about blowing each other up! Or not getting blown up. Or really blowing each other up! Which already sounds pretty damn cool, and it get’s better because you’re going to be playing in teams! Or pairs, really, but still! Teams!

I love team games and firmly believe the board gaming world needs, nay, deserves many more team games. The only thing better than pulling off an awesome move and relishing your success, is doing that with a team mate who can share in your triumph. No need to be self-deprecating when you crush your opponents as a team! It’s just so much more fun.

So that’s in general. Does Peekaboom live up to my giddy excitement? Well partner, lets find out together.

Your mission is to collect three identical cards, and there are only 3 of each number in the deck. Each player will reveal a card into the centre of the table to start the game and you can all freely exchange cards between your hand and those in the middle. When no one wants anymore you’ll discard the cards from the middle, meaning those numbers can no longer form sets, and each reveal a new card. So far, that’s probably the most boring rules explanation you could have read, but as soon as someone has collected their set of 3, that’s where the genius of this game begins.

You need to secretly communicate with your partner that you’ve pulled together a set, then they’ll detonate it by shouting “BOOM!” winning you the round and a delightful point. However, if the other team is paying attention and see your signal, or just notice you’ve not been exchanging cards recently, they can shout “SNIP!” and defuse your bomb, scoring them 2 points! But of course, screwing up gives the other team the points. First team to 10 wins.

This secret signalling adds a wonderful tension to the game: are the other team trying to signal? Oh God please don’t notice me scratching my ear. Why won’t my partner look up from their cards and see me scratching my ear!? The end of each round is an inevitable release of emotion. It’s either a dramatic shout out with one team beating the others by a fraction of a second (we award the points to whoever makes the “B-“ or “S-“ noise first) or the other team is kicking themselves for not paying attention properly! It’s great.

It is also surprisingly strategic. Timing your signal is really important, as is pretending to not have a full set yet. But you can choose to pay more attention to your opponents, looking for the signal, than on collecting cards. Or you can bluff, using different signals to try and draw out an incorrect “Snip”. Or you can figure out what cards your opponent is collecting, watching for them picking it up like a hawk to get that “Snip” in before they’ve even had a chance to make the signal. I’ve played rounds where I have deliberately fed my opponent the cards they were looking for from my hand. As they picked up the last one… SNIP! And all of these tactics slip into a shifting meta-game that favours one approach over another until your opponents wise up.

But wait… what’s this? This is not a new game: it’s based on an old card game known (for whatever reason) as Kemps. If you read this Wikipedia description you’ll see just how similar it is. So, given you can kind of play this with a simple deck of cards, what does Peekaboom do differently?

Firstly, the card distribution is different. Rather than collecting a set of 4 in Kemps you collect a set of 3, hardly a gaming revolution, but it does give the game enough flexibility to allow up to 6 players to play comfortably, where having only 12 possible sets might have been a bit restrictive. It probably speeds the rounds up too. That’s the boring one. Ok there’s actually theme to this too but aside from the jazzy art and how much more fun it is to shout “Boom!” rather than “Kemps!” it’s hardly an important change.

Much more interestingly is a rule I left out till now for the dramatic reveal. You ready!? You have the option, once you’ve completed your set, to wait for your partner to also complete a set. Then you can shout “Peekaboom!” and score 3 points! Ok, not that exciting, and is kind of an official variant too. But, it’s a good variant as it offers you that terrible push-your-luck temptation. Go big or go home! Plus it confuses the players as they try to shout the right boom word, which is always amusing.

No, the real reason to pick up this game is the giant deck of secret signal cards you get that ensures a random signal each round. Sure, you can make up your own, but the deck offers you some perfectly sensible sounding signals, until you try and figure out how to do them subtly! How do you touch your eye, or stick your tongue out without being obvious? Scratch your bum? How about talking about the weather when everyone is in silent concentration!? It may seem simple, but when you draw a tough one, it’s bound to get a response from you, and using the deck means you’re forced to adapt to the challenge each round.

I’ve really enjoyed playing Peekaboom! A very occasional round will run on a bit long as no-one is able to pull together a set, and swapping the central cards out is fiddly. But overall, each round ending in tension and desperate shouting, games coming down to the wire in the last round (you play first to 10 points), the scope for ingenuity that rewards getting into your opponents heads, all of this makes up for its flaws. It’s a really enjoyable filler game. Not everyone will be satisfied forking out for a game you can play with a deck of cards though, and while the signal cards are a fantastic and well recommended inclusion, I’ll have to let you decide if it’s worth your hard earned cash. But definitely check out their Kickstarter!

 

Rating: Peekabrill

 

Our copy of Peekaboom was provided to us by the publisher Tim Callagy. It will be up on Kickstarter soon!

I would also like to thank Brendan Meara for allowing us to use his fuse images at the top of this post. They are stills from his film “Long Fuse”. If you’d like to see more of his work, he has a website here.