React!
Robert Peel
Pocklington: Hollypock Educational Games 2004 | £45.00 for 7 sets; £60.00 for 10 sets |
Reviewed by Ben Faust

This ingenious game, based on snakes and ladders, has squares labelled with symbols of the metals (and hydrogen) of the reactivity series. Players move tokens from the lab (bungs, corks etc) towards a target of hydrogen at the centre of the board – actually a colourful laminated A3 sheet – but a move is permitted only if the square that a player would land on is marked with the symbol of an element lower in the reactivity series than the one they are already on (representing a successful reaction). If players cannot move they have a ‘consolation’ move, proceeding one square only. 

No two players can occupy the same square at the same time, and there is an interesting rule for swapping places with the person on whom a player will land. There is also the opportunity to leapfrog to the next square representing the same element if a player would have landed on a square similar to the one they are moving from. Players also have different options if they throw a double with the dice. The game comes with colourful laminated sheets of the rules, complete with a printed reactivity series. 

Some of my Year 10 pupils played the game and liked the fact that they had to think about what they were doing, and that the displacement rule was being reinforced. They also liked the fact that having the unreactive metals in the squares nearest the end made finishing from there more complicated. Five students played one game in 25 minutes, and I was impressed that they wanted to play until all but one had finished. They did think that it could do with more ‘go back’ and ‘advance’ squares but each to move the player only a smaller distance. 

My students and I were often confused by irrelevant red arrows and jazzy text and symbols around the playing squares – it was sometimes hard to ignore these distractions. The rules are simple enough to allow play to commence quickly, but complex enough to make bright pupils think. 

This is an interesting and fun diversion to reinforce the reactivity series. However, teachers who decide to buy the game will be paying for the idea rather than high quality merchandise.