My knowledge of the periodic table is summed up in 2 points. 1) I know that Sheldon and Leonard have a periodic table shower curtain in The Big Bang Theory and 2) I know I don’t know enough about the periodic table.
That said, aside from a couple of questions on University Challenge I don’t believe I have ever had cause to use knowledge of the periodic table in my general adult life. However. We were recently sent a board game called FReNeTiC to review which is themed around the periodic table. I must admit that due to my aforementioned almost complete ignorance I was worried about how well I would fare against my opponents.
Spoiler alert: I won.
FReNeTiC
The idea of FReNeTiC is that it’s a word game with a difference. But make no mistake, despite its periodic table theme it is much more about words than science.
Play is started by player 1 choosing 8 tiles and placing them on their corresponding square on the board. All players then attempt to make words using the tiles on the board before the timer runs out. Player 2 then chooses 4 tiles and all players again attempt to make words from tiles on the board. Scores are added up using the atomic numbers on the tiles used.
Play carries on until somebody reaches 1000 points.
I really like this game. It might be my favourite board game of 2018 actually. I am in favour of toys and games which point toward STEM learning and we found that FReNeTiC prompted Bess to ask questions about the elements. I also like that you could quite possibly learn a fair amount about the periodic table almost incidentally really.
…..and maths, too
So as well as using our grey matter to find words. FReNeTiC also encourages learning about the elements and because the atomic numbers tended to be some pretty big numbers, Bess also got a bit of math practise too. This is a great educational game. I would definitely recommend it.
FReNeTiC is available from Amazon and John Lewis as well as lots of other shops.
We were sent a copy of the game to try it out and give our honest opinion.
