I first discovered the Ultra Dash game at the Toy Fair in January and I straight away asked if I could review it because I thought it looked great fun. Fast forward to November and I finally got my hands on it. Why was I so keen to review this game? It’s a game that encourages children (and adults) to get active by appealing to their competitive spirits. I initially thought it would be great fun to play in our garden, but as it’s a bit muddy out there at the moment we have been playing it inside and it works really well.

Find out about the Ultra Dash game in this review

From University Games, Ultra Dash consists of a”tagger” or  handset with a light at the top which flashes one of 5 colours to match the 5 coloured targets. You place the targets around the room and when it’s your turn you have to run to that colour base as quickly as possible, put the handset in to connect it and it will change colour to show you where you need to go next. There are 3 different game options and you can play any of them as multi-player games (it let me select up to 99 players!). We have been playing it around our living room, but you can play it just as easily in the garden, around the house, in a park, hall, anywhere really.

Game 1 Beat the clock: Get to all 5 targets in the order identified by the tagger in the fastest possible time.

Game 2 Target Tally: Get to as many targets as possible in a specified time. The default time is 20 seconds, but you can extend it in 10 second increments up to 9 minutes and 50 seconds depending on how much of a workout you want.

Game 3 Relay Race: Divide players into 2 teams with equal numbers of players and each player in both teams gets a go.  The team with the overall fastest time wins. A great way to balance out mixed abilities.

What did we think of Ultra Dash?

I like that you can play Ultra Dash with friends or as a single player game so the only competition is yourself, my 7 year old played it in single player mode for sometime. She is very competitive against herself and she was much happier than when I was playing against her and accidentally won (I can be pretty competitive too).

Ultra Dash is a great family game. I love that it gets people moving and that it can be used in so many situations: from on your own to at a party. Adults could even use it to make working out more fun, nearly 10 minutes running around the garden and reaching for bases at different heights is going to be more fun than working out on a treadmill. 

The game is recommended for 6 years plus, but unsurprisingly as soon as my toddler saw what we were playing she wanted to have a go too. I’m not really sure why the advisory age is so high, apart from occasionally getting confused about which colour she was meant to go to my toddler loved playing it. We obviously set each game up for her, but after that she was fine. She even put the handset in the targets more gently than my 7 year old so I wasn’t worried about them getting damaged (none of them have got damaged but I still worry her force might break the connectors). Of course my toddler wouldn’t be left with the game on her own and she was never going to win a game, but she’s at an age where she enjoys playing and isn’t too concerned about who wins.

The pieces all fit back into the box so you can keep it all together (which isn’t always the case with games) so it is easy to store it on to take it away on holiday. I have seen other packaging though so this might not always be the case depending on which version you buy. The game takes 3 AAA batteries which aren't included and secured in a small compartment on the tagger accessed by a small screw.

Ultra Dash is £24.99 RRP, but is currently widely available for around £19.99

***Disclosure: We were sent Ultra Dash for the purpose of review***