Jitterbug Review: Addictive Family Fun

After first seeing it in action at BlogOn recently, we were lucky enough to have a copy of Jitterbug sent to us to try out and give our honest thoughts about. 

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It’s from University Games and comes in just over the £15 mark, but is it worth splashing out on ready for Christmas Day family fun?

In short, yes! 

But if you fancy reading a few more details here goes…

Jitterbug Review

Jitterbug is a pretty straightforward game, and is nice and easy to put together. Out of the box you just need to insert a couple of AA batteries, press the hat onto Jitterbug’s head and attach the four permanent legs.

With that complex set up achieved, it’s time to start having fun! The aim of the game is to get 4 legs attached to Jitterbug and hit the hat before your opponent manages to. Sounds easy enough, but it’s made somewhat harder by the fact that the Jitterbug is jumping and vibrating around the place as if its life depended on it!

Each of the 2-4 players chooses a colour and picks up 4 corresponding plastic legs. Someone hits the hat and that sets Jitterbug off careering across the room. Each player tries to slot his legs into any of the holes before the other players and must hit the hat again to stop Jitterbug before the legs come flying off again.

It’s actually pretty difficult to get them on at all, and even harder to get all 4 on before the others fall off again! Joshua and I ended up playing on a wooden floor and actually had a load of fun chasing Jitterbug around the floor battling to get his legs back on. 

Joshua almost inevitably beat me 3-1 but as I’ve developed a fairly stoic approach to being defeated at games over the past year I took it on the chin! 

Jitterbug isn’t a game that takes a lot of thought to play. It’s all about quick reflexes and fun, so really is pretty perfect for a family games night or Christmas Day evening entertainment. There’s no messing about with instructions or lengthy setting up time. 

We really enjoyed it.

Having played it quite a bit today the only downside I could think of is that you need a fairly big hard, flat surface to play it on. Wood or laminate flooring is ideal but a decent sized table should work pretty well too. You can still play it on a low pile carpet but it loses some of its frantic entertainment value then!

All in all a cracking gift for the festive season.