Title – Buckaroo!
Age Range – 4 and up
Players - 2 or more
Maker/Publisher– Milton Bradley
Designer – unknown

The Components:
Plastic, spring loaded mule
Plastic base for the mule
Various plastic objects including: saddle, blanket, shovel, canteen, pan, bedroll, lantern, hat, holster, rope, dynamite, crate and guitar
Instructions

The Concept:
You are a miner packing your mule to head out to the mine. The problem is that your mule doesn’t like to travel with a heavy load. If you overload him he rears up, bucking everything off and scattering it all to the four winds.
Each turn a player randomly picks an object and tries to place it on the mule’s saddle without triggering him to buck. If you are successful, play passes to the next person in line. If you fail and he bucks you are out of the game. The mule is reset and the next person takes a turn. If all the objects are placed and he dosen’t buck, that player is the winner. If a completely laden saddle is never reached, the last player to not trigger a buck is the winner.

The Good:
This dexterity game is a lot of fun for kids and adults alike. Kids will have a blast waiting, anticipating and then watching the objects go flying all over the place. Adults will quickly learn where to place objects to either trigger the mule or not, but it still is fun to play.

The pieces are made of nice heavy-duty plastic so you won’t have to worry about them breaking and the spring in the mule is not strong enough for it to send the pieces flying hard enough that you need to worry about them breaking something.

There is a “difficulty switch” that lets you adjust the trigger on the buck, and trust me, the third setting will challenge several adults I know.

The mule (and the box in the version I got) is full of bright primary colors which will engage younger players.


The Nitpicky:
The only nitpicky thing I can see is that the sudden jerk of the mule startled my 4 year old and as a result she is hesitant to play again, Though she laughs her head off every time it bucks on someone else. However, I’m pretty sure she will want to play very soon.


Overall:
This is a lot of fun to play, there is no reading required at all (as the box states) in fact there really is no thinking involved at all just pick a piece and place it….laughing ensues.
Great fun I recommend this one.

Thats my .02
Gantrell
"KMG365"