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Players: 2
Playing Time: 5-10 minutes
Wallamoppi is a fast-paced stacking game for two players. The set comes in a neat little wooden box, which also serves as a timer, 18 dark and 18 light-colored kiwi disks in a kiwi disk bag, and 2 timer marbles.
The game is played in two steps, beginning with the building of the wall. One person chooses dark and the other light-colored disks to play. Play begins by choosing one disk from the kiwi bag (without looking). The first player will place this disk, regardless of the color, as the foundation of the wall. The next person chooses from the bag and places her disk next to the first. This building process continues, alternating players, until an eight-level pyramid is completed, with the top-level disk actually serving as the first disk of the tower.
The next step is building the tower. The player who chose the light-colored disks goes first by choosing a light-colored disk from the wall and placing it atop the first disk of the tower. The tricky part of the tower building is that each player’s turn is timed by dropping a marble in the box timer. She may not touch a disk in the wall until her opponent starts the timer, and she must complete placement of the disk before the marble reaches the end of the chute. Play continues until the tower falls, and the person who last completed her turn without mishap is the winner. For a more relaxed game, it can be played without using the timer.
At first I thought that Wallamoppi was just another stacking game (yawn!), but when we played, it turned out to be pretty fun. I played this with everyone in my house—even the four-year-old, who has a surprisingly steady hand and beat me soundly. I like that the game is designed to go quickly, and my husband liked the strategy involved in the wall-building. The little girls didn’t quite get the strategy, but they both enjoyed it—and the little one especially likes the timer. The disks themselves are aesthetically pleasing little light and dark wood pieces with an embossed kiwi bird on them, and the built-in timer is simple and clever. Overall, it’s a cute game, and I think it would make a nice gift. The only drawback, in my opinion, is that it’s only a two-player game—but I guess you can’t always have everything…
