Our Intergalactic Star Wars Family Game Night

With school back in session and fall in full effect, I’ve been thinking about the just-passed summer and the unexpected adventure my family shared. It happened by accident, as the Little Dude wanted to attend a one-week Jedi Training camp nearby, which understandably piqued his interest in what occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Now I will admit it publically for the first time: we became a group of Star Wars nuts.

And I don’t mean nuts like my boys watched Episode I and liked Jar-Jar Binks. I mean nuts like we watched all six movies and they are both fully consumed with what happened on Tatooine, Hoth, Endor, Naboo, Kamino and assorted other intergalactic locales. Did I mention that this was just before they recently turned 3 and 6 respectively?

Having spent considerable time in July and August in front of the tube while escaping the triple-digits outside, I wanted to find a way to extend my boys’ interest in Star Wars beyond just the movies. So I’ve bought books about the mythology, and there’s been toys, snacks and a variety of other SW-wares floating around our place. So when a box arrived with a few brand-new Star Wars games from my friends at Hasbro, my family was more excited than an unfrozen Han in Episode VI. 

So on a recent weekend afternoon, we shut off the tube and went to dig into our new box of treasures. There was Loopin’ Chewie, a Wookie-esque spin on a classic board game suitable for all ages, which first appealed to my gang. We laid on the floor and slapped our boosters, trying to get Chewbacca to knock each others’ coins loose. This was easily doable for all ages, even the just-3 Littler Dude. 

Mrs. Dude was partial to “Bop It”, a handheld portable R2-D2 which is a great memory and timing game. It was a bit too tricky for my boys after the first round, but it’s a fun little stress reliever which can double as a cool R2 statue on your desk.

The one I was most curious about was Catch Phrase, which is like a mix of charades without the drawing and hot potato, with a Millenium Falcon subbing for said potato. It’s listed for ages 12+, but I wanted to see if my boys could keep up, and I can proudly say that they appear like Anakin in Episode I, to be the Chosen Ones. I won’t say they aced the game, but this fun little game is a fantastic creative tool, forcing my 6-year-old to use your brain to create clues about the phrases I had to guess He guessed some of mine, I guessed some of his, and we all had a great time. So much so, in fact, that he refused to put Catch Phrase down for about an hour. Just to be clear, this is definitely a more advanced game, but my boys enjoyed making their brains work to solve the puzzles. This is really a great game for Star Wars enthusiasts and obsessives at the same time, plus it even features info about the upcoming Episode VII: The Force Awakens for the super hardcore fan.

Loopin’ Chewie and Star Wars Catch Phrase are available at most major retailers and also on HasbroToyShop.com. Bop It Star Wars R2-D2 is exclusively at Walmart. Even better: thanks to Influence Central you can have the chance to win one of 5 Hasbro Star Wars Prize Packs, valued at $65, containing these great games. Contest ends on November 23, 2015, so don’t wait to enter or you’ll feel left out like Luke when his friends all went to the Academy. How can you enter? See the handy box below: 

Hasbro Star Wars Giveaway

*I-C will randomly select 5 winners from all program entries and will handle fulfillment of the winning prizes.

Like a good Jedi, I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Hasbro. I received samples of all three games to play and was compensated for my participation. All opinions and ideas contained above are solely from my mind, for better or worse.

Want to see the Little Dude play Star Wars Bop It? Here's your chance: 

Teaching My Kids What I Don't Know About Toys

They say that everything old is new again and for me that proved true on a recent Saturday afternoon with my boys. While playing with some new toys, the almost-6 year old Little Dude started asking me questions to which I held no answers. For most people my age, they would have probably been no-brainers, but I was baffled in a way that I was not used to.

Opening the big brown box to discover adventures waiting to happen from Jurassic World, Transformers and Marvel I felt a twinge of unease in my stomach. I pride myself on being a pop culture aficionado, but these were items to which I held virtually no knowledge. Sure, I’d played with Transformers when I was a kid – THIRTY YEARS AGO; but I had no clue who the Rescuebots were or what they are about. Same goes for the Jurassic universe, where I had never made the journey until seeing the new film over the past summer. And as for the super heroes, I can admit (though I probably shouldn’t) that I still don’t instinctively always recall whether characters are from the Marvel universe or its alternative, let alone their origin stories.  

What’s weird about this is that these are three ginormous watercooler-type properties and I felt like a dunce in front of my children. I’m sure they didn’t notice, but I had no clue what the alternate blue suit Iron Man could dress up in was about. That did not stop them, however from having a great time exploring the characters and blurring the lines between these three respective universes.

Who cares if Iron Man doesn’t usually ride a T-Rex, or if that same T-Rex was hanging out on a big boat? Certainly not my boys. They played the afternoon away as I stealthily searched for Iron Man factoids on my iPhone. We learned together, which turned out to be a fabulous methodology. 

The one thing that was most familiar to me that day was Playskool, the classic brand behind these Playskool Heroes sets designed to introduce kids to some franchises they may not have been typically exposed to. Intended for kids 3 to 7, sometimes even kids older than 37 can benefit from the creative play they afford.

I remember seeing the first Iron Man movie shortly after its release about 6 years ago. Mrs. Dude was pregnant and I thought the movie was a lot of fun, which is not my typical take on superhero movies but I dug the snark from Mr. Stark. Flash forward a half dozen years and two births and we just never quite made it to see any of the sequels. Tony Stark’s lair was memorable, and this set was a great introduction for my boys into the world of Stark Industries, or at least the cool house you can have if you work hard enough and have a rad goatee.

The Rescuebots set was actually an area where the boys taught me, having been slightly familiar with the brand from playing with their cousin, a big Transformers guru, and I dug the refresher given my slight frame of reference went back to the original

late ‘80s Transformers cartoon. Let’s just say that I thought they were more than meets the eye THEN, so I was quite impressed by what they are now.

And as for good-old T-Rex? Everyone can relate to him, whether familiar with the Jurassic world or not, including even the trainer who joins him in the set and who will inevitably get eaten by Rex roughly a thousand times per play session.

So where does this leave us? Well, now that we all have a base-level feel for these three franchises, a great launch point for my sons and me to learn about them together.

I received compensation & toys from Hasbro, makers of Playskool Heroes, in exchange for this post, but all opinions contained within are mine alone, for better or worse lest I be eaten by a T-Rex.

Want more pics from our Playskool and other adventures? 

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