Gloutons (French for Gluttons) is a straightforward children’s game from Yannis Lidy with art by Clément Lefévre. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek the game claims to be for ages '5 to 99'; my 5-year old loved it, I did not, and I’d be surprised if it holds more than a passing interest for even a 9-year old.
Its aesthetic is the best thing about the game (it would not look out of place in the Tate Modern gift shop!) and fans of the Djeco Company will not be disappointed with their signature child-friendly illustrations (undeniably cutesy, with that nostalgic-contemporary look so ubiquitous in the kids market), enabling this game to fit seamlessly into Djeco's wider product range. Production values are high, as we've come to expect from this publisher: aside from the chunky plastic friendly-looking 'monsters', the game comes with four pairs of plastic tweezers and a pile of robust twists of 'string'.
The game involves flipping a card that shows everyday objects. The detail of the objects is irrelevant: what matters are the colours (red, blue, green, orange) and whether the illustration is large or small. Players then race using plastic tweezers to pick up pieces of string of the corresponding colours and size and poke them into the mouth of their chunky cute plastic 'monster'. Gloutons is a speed dexterity game that will appeal to nursery children but which is unlikely to hold for long the attention of older children or adults press-ganged into playing.
The gameplay is simple - far too simple for the grown ups. There's some effort at levelling the game difficulty up but it lacks creativity and consistency to reach any serious degree of replayability, so that we found we had to add our own rules and equipment to improve the experience. So far, so mediocre. Ironically, (or perhaps appropriately) Gloutons left me unsatisfied and wanting much more from it. Of course, notwithstanding the bullish '5-99' age range claim on the box, I must admit I'm probably not the game's primary demographic!
(Review by Michael Harrowing)