Smart Ass family board game for age 12+ review

Smart Ass is an incredibly easy-to-learn trivia board game from University Games. Suitable for 2 to 8 players aged around 12+ because of the difficulty of some of the questions, my teenagers were delighted when they saw we had been sent this to review because they had all played Smart Ass before and already knew they liked it!

Each player has a counter which you move along a pathway on the board until someone reaches the final space.

When it's your turn you roll a coloured dice to decide which question you will ask the rest of the players. The question cards are either Orange: Who am I?, Blue: What am I? or Green: Where am I?

Each card then has a series of clues to read aloud, getting easier as they go along. The other players shout out the answer as soon as they think they know it.

If another player guesses the answer correctly then they roll a numbered dice and move forward the corresponding number of spaces. If no player answers correctly, then the player who's turn it is rolls the dice and moves.

The board also has special spaces which can send you back a few spaces, or require you to take part in a bonus Hard Ass round. Only the player who lands on Hard Ass can answer the question - which is one of the funniest bits of the game as every time we played, everyone else knew the answer and was giggling in frustration.
 

Although Smart Ass is for age 12+, the only thing that's 'adult' really is the title - which my small boys think is rude. The questions are general knowledge so adults do have an advantage, but you can only get one guess per question card, so waiting can mean you lose out to someone else, or you get to answer at your leisure once everyone else has guessed something daft.

Thanks to a few wrong answers or poor strategy with timing by the adults and teenagers, we played on a fairly even level, including our 7 year old, who insisted on joining in to try out Smart Ass himself!
 

Smart Ass is fast-paced, quite loud and incredibly funny. It's the good sort of frustration knowing you have an answer and can't give it, or seeing that everyone else knows and won't tell you. We didn't find the question cards too hard or too easy, usually they were guessed after 3 or 4 of the 10 clues, so there wasn't any general frustration with the game. 

This isn't a very expensively made game. It's a standard board and the question cards are a bit thin - ours were curved from the tight plastic they arrived in, so the cards kept sliding off the piles. However you don't need anything else to play, and as the retail price is only £17.99 (currently on offer on Amazon at £13.99 with free delivery on Prime), this is an excellent value game for your money, and definitely a great one to buy for a games night with friends or family.