Advert: This game was gifted for the purposes of review. All opinions are ours.

Are you hungry for more Alley Cat tin games! Because they’ve only gone and given us another one! This is Spaghettin.

Key stats

2 to 6 players | 2 to 5 minutes | 8+ years

Publisher: Alley Cat Games
Designer: Franco Sardo
Art: Rory Muldoon

Theme/category: Food
Key mechanics: Dexterity, Player elimination

Gameplay overview

Spaghettin is a quick dexterity game of slurping up spaghetti while trying to avoid dropping the toppings. Well, not quite slurping (unless you’re really keen to reenact Lady and the Tramp!), because you’ll use mini tweezers and take turns pulling spaghetti strings out.

If you pull out a piece of spaghetti and one of the cube toppings hits the bottom of the tin, you’re out! NO MORE PASTA FOR YOU. The last player standing wins, and everyone else owes them dessert.

Set-up is super simple – throw in the spaghetti, sprinkle the toppings and you’re ready to go! Buon appetito!

Our thoughts

• The first game this reminded us of was Ker Plunk (remember that one?), but obviously this theme is much cuter and comes in the travel-friendly tin. And unlike Ker Plunk, you can’t see through the sides, which makes scoping out the safest spaghetti quite tricky.

• The shoelace strings are various lengths and get tangled up like your 00s earphones (at least they should, if you mix them properly) – this is where a lot of the challenge, fun and randomness come in. This game is definitely more down to luck than strategy. You can try and identify the best strings to go for, but it can be hard to detangle with your eyes so sometimes it’s down to a tug and a prayer.

• The game comes with 5 different cube toppings – this may not seem like many components (it’s hard not to compare it to Tinderblox/Barbecubes that come with many blocks). But playing it you realise that more than 4 would make the game over too quickly.

• You could probably scale the difficulty (and game length) by altering how you mix up your spaghetti, and how many toppings you sprinkle on top.

• The age is listed as 8+ but complexity wise I think it would actually fit better with even younger kids. You could even forgo tweezers and pull the strings with your fingers for littler kiddos.

Verdict

As big fans of dinky travel games, we love that Tinderblox started this tin series, and each release (that we’ve played) has its own niche. Spaghettin’s niche is that it is so simple and quick, it’s the accessible entrée to the rest of the line – especially for people who find the other dexterity tins tricky. While it’s not one we’d pick to play together when it’s just us (Barbecubes and Tinderblox are still our faves),I think our niblings will love Spaghettin and I’m looking forward to introducing it to them – and our toddler when he’s a bit older.