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Growing up as the youngest of four I was often subjected to being called my siblings names before my mum would eventually get to mine. In fact it wasn’t only their names, sometimes she went through extended family, neighbours… her best friend’s auntie’s dog etc. Well, now I have my own three little goblins I’m exactly the same, if not worse, than my mum, and I’m the one being mocked for my lack of moniker recall. If you can’t sympathise and you have no idea how someone could forget basic info, then you need to have a game of Bumfuzzle because you soon will!
‘White, I mean red, no it’s orange, BUMFUZZLE… ahhh shoot!!’
Bumfuzzle is a cunningly mind muddling party game for 2+ players by Ginger Fox Games. The premise is very simple, you must never, ever say Bumfuzzle! But the execution is sooo much trickier, you’d be surprised how difficult it is not to say a made up word you’ve never heard before!
Fumbling your words
In Bumfuzzle 80 cards are dealt evenly between players, they will keep their stack face down. Each of the cards has a word written on it in various colours, you will either say the word OR the colour of the word based on the colour of the background. If it’s a blue background you need to say the colour of the word, if it’s a green or red card, you must say the word, that is unless that word is BUMFUZZLE! The first person to get rid of their stack of cards is the winner and may bask in their Bumfuzzle glory!
Now obviously if Bumfuzzle is on a blue card, you just say the colour of the word, but if it happens to be on a green or red card you need to silently but quickly, stand up. The first person to say the correct word or colour gets to turn over their next card, but if someone yells out the wrong thing, they have to pick up all the played cards and add them to the bottom of their pile. Sounds simple, but you and I both know it’s absolutely not. In this case, confidence is not key because as soon as you get into a rhythm answering, up pops Bumfuzzle and before you know it you’ve shouted out that ill-fated word and you're left picking up the played cards and your personal pile has doubled.
Perhaps you think this sounds easy as all you need to do is make an effort to only read the colours? Well, unfortunately, the cards contain other words too, and they’re all annoyingly similar to Bumfuzzle. You’re that busy trying to quickly read whether its fumbuzzle, buzzyfum or fuzzlebum that you don’t notice it’s on a blue background and only the colour of the word is needed!
Buzzing with excitement!
My younger two, especially my 7 year old, love Bumfuzzle, although I think a chunk of that draw is the fact he gets to say ‘bum’ quite a lot. It’s a quick party game, easy to get to the table and a great icebreaker. I do think it’s perhaps better when played with 4 or more, as with 2 or 3 it’s quite a lot of cards for each player to try and get rid of, especially if you’re playing with kids.
The box actually states this is suitable for age twelve and above but my 11 and 7 year old had no trouble with it, I think it will be more dependent on how well your child can read the words. Or the age rating may be dependent on how many expletives you utter when you’ve almost cleared your pile and accidently shouted BUMFUZZLE instead!
Bumbling through
Bumfuzzle is ok, personally if I was after a quick party card game, I would probably be more inclined to reach for something more like Ligretto or That’s Not A Hat, but my kids love it and it will definitely get more play going forward. It’s a cute little pick me up game, there's no rule booklet, it’s literally just a rule sheet that’s tiny enough to go in its tiny box! If you’re after a game that favours memory, strategy, skill etc, this isn’t it, and it’s definitely not for any of you who are colour blind. My other half is red/green colour blind and always ends up as the adjudicator because he can’t make out the shade differences. But having said all that, it’s a great, easy game for kids of the right age and it will literally be a joy to watch them rolling around laughing as the adults try, and more often than not fail, to beat them at reading made up words or being the first to just say a colour. To be honest, I do have fun with it too.
Top tip, if you’re in your very very very late 20s - ahem (like the kind of late 20s that start with a 4 not a 2…) play it at a table, that way it’s much kinder on the knees when you have to stand up. Of course if you want to add another level of difficulty, by all means sit on the floor and play, but the kids are definitely going to best you there too!
