Toys and games

Review: FReNeTiC

By on Monday, March 11, 2019
A board game called FReNeTiC.

Disclosure: I received a copy of FReNeTiC in exchange for this review. 

We love a good board game in our house. It’s always good to discover one that stealthily educates kids too. And, in FReNeTiC, I’ve found one that achieves just that.

Made by the creators of Accentuate, it’s a word game based on the periodic table of the elements. It’s recommended for two or more players aged eight and up.

When I saw it on display at the Toy Fair earlier this year, I knew we had to give it a go! The aim of FReNeTiC is to make up words from the letters of the element symbols.

These are represented both on the game board and 96 symbol tiles. There are also four FReNeTiC tiles which players put aside to be used in place of any element tiles.

For each round, players pick eight tiles from the bag and place them on the corresponding spaces on the board. Then everyone has 45 seconds to make as many words as they can from the eight tiles on display.

FReNeTiC being played.

Amazingly, it’s possible to make over 10,000 different words with them. The scoring system is based on the atomic numbers of the tiles, so it’s good for adding up in addition to making words.

You can actually make the names of 13 elements with the right combinations of tiles. These are outlined in green on the board. If you manage to make any of these, you can claim any of the FReNeTiC tiles other players have.

There are also ten red spaces on the board. If you create words including one of these, you get a double score.

As well as encouraging literacy and numeracy skills, of course, it introduces the periodic table. I’m not entirely sure when kids learn about it nowadays but it wasn’t until secondary school for me, which was probably a little late.

One player's scores in a game of FReNeTiC.

Getting children familiar with the look of the table as well as with the atomic symbols and their values earlier can only be a good thing. It builds a foundation that they can learn from once they’re old enough to carry out experiments with Bunsen burners and the like.

Back to the game and I think we did fairly well for our first attempt. The winner is the first player to reach 1000 points. This may sound like quite a high tally, but we got there pretty quickly. In case you were wondering, I won. Which was something of a relief as I write for a living!

FReNeTiC is available from retailers including Amazon and has an RRP of £22.99. However, I have one copy to give away! To be in with a chance of winning, enter via Rafflecopter below.

Use as many of the entry methods as you like, including sharing your favourite word. For the record, mine is floccinaucinihilipilification. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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