Squawk

The Egg-splosive chicken game 2 – 4 players ages 4 and up

Who doesn’t love a rubber chicken—espcially one that makes noise? Add a chicken that lays eggs in the game of Squawk and you have a winner. Or so I thought. Squawk turned out not to be the barnyard hit that I thought it should be.

Set Up

There was a lot of assembly required. You have to build the hen house, attach the chicken, sick the stickers. Of course, a lot of younger kids games have this element to them, but when you have a young kid wanting to press that bright yellow chicken it can seem like forever to get this step done.

Once the assembly is done, you place the chick tokens in the house and then the egg in the chicken and close up the hen house.

Play

The youngest player goes first. He rolls the dice and then presses down on the chicken’s chest the corresponding amount of times. If the hen house doesn’t open up, that players turn is over and play moves to the next player. On the other hand, if the chicken SQUAWKs and the hen house bursts open that player then gets to pick up the egg that is laid and crack it open.

An egg token then falls to the ground. If the token lands with the egg side up then he doesn’t win a token and his turn is over. However, if the token lands with the chick side up then he gets to collect a chick token that is found inside the hen house. (This is actually quite difficult to do, often causing the token to get thrown through the air. This might get better then more you play. Also, I see the need to such security as the chicks do have to stay in place when the hen house exposes open, however, as an adult I found it hard. For kids this might be a plus or a minus—on one hand you have to wait once again. On the other hand you get to see the chick fly through the air in unexpected ways.)

At the end of a turn, you need to put the token back in the egg, the egg back in the chicken an close up the hen house. Sounds easy, but the hen house is actually quite difficult to get to stay shut. Plus every time you try to get the hen house to shut, the chicken makes a squawk sound that gets annoying. Again, the kids might be amused by the sound or annoyed by having to wait.

Winning Squawk

The game is over when all of the chick tokens have been claimed. The player with the most chicks wins.

What We Like

The chicken is cute. I mean really, who doesn’t like rubber chickens? The game is easy enough for young children to play. Also, the excitement of waiting to see if the hen house is going to explode is always a kid favorite. Another thing for is good for the young age target is that it is entirely luck based. This makes it a even playing field for all ages.

We played this with a younger niece and she loved the Squawk sound that the chicken makes. So much so that she didn’t want to play; she only wanted to press the chicken and see how loud and how long she could make the sound.

Squawk carries the chicken theme all the way through. All of the elements make sense in the chicken world, something that can be lacking in pre-school games.

What We Don’t Like

First, the hen house is next to impossible to get shut back again. Plus, every time you try  the chicken squawks. Next is the box. There is no way that the chicken is ever going back inside the box. This might be okay as the egg and the chicks can be safely stored inside the hen house, but the dice could easily get lost not to mention the instructions.  The chicken then becomes an object that needs to be on top of every other game or toy on the shelf.

The next thing we don’t like is the squawk sound. Yes, it can be cute and fun but you hear it far too much as it squawks every time to have to shut the house. Also, if in our case, you have an enthusiastic squawker in your bunch….. need I say more?

Lastly, the disappointment of getting the egg side of the token can be hard for some kids to take, especially if they’ve missed out on the hen house exploding a few times.

Conclusion

Although Squawk is cute and young children love the element of surprise, I would say to skip adding Squawk to your Family Game Shelf.

If you have a chicken lover in your house and want to give Squawk a try, you can get your copy form Amazon here.

To find a game that is right for your family, check out our game reviews here.
Don’t forget to check out our card game and dice game sections too.

Pros: cute, younger kids like the suspense and the squawk noise
Cons: too hard to reset, squawk noise is annoying to adults, storage,
Mom: turn taking, disappointment management