Welcome, Spy. Here’s your mission: Cross through the laser field and defuse the bomb before time runs out. If you complete your goal, you’ll be a hero. But if you don’t, you can restart the timer and try again because it’s just a game.

ChronoBomb.Patch

Chrono Bomb, from Patch Products, is for thrill seekers ages 7 and up who aren’t afraid of a little challenge, and who don’t mind getting down and dirty in an attempt to defuse a fake bomb. The game goes way beyond the standard game board, and asks players to create their own laser maze/obstacle course using a 27.5-foot string and several clamps anywhere they want.

When designing the laser field kids can be as strategic and creative as they like—that’s what makes it more fun. In our office we were limited to attaching the clamps to doors, a table, our huge printer, and a bookshelf, but that was more than enough to create a maze that made defusing the bomb (and getting to my desk) extremely challenging. You’ll want your maze to require spies to crawl, duck, and step over obstacles, and kids can make the mission even more difficult by dropping Gear and Mission cards in the maze, which players will have to pick up as they go through it.

During game play, kids set the timer and choose how long a player has to get to through the maze and to the bomb. While kids navigate through the course, they’ll have to move quickly, but be super stealth and not touch the string with any part of their bodies or else the timer speeds up! Throughout the game kids will hear the tick…tick…tick… of the timer and once the ticking gets more persistent kids will feel the pressure. I know I did.

The best part is that kids will want to play over and over again because there’s no limit to how many different courses they can make, or the different venues they can play in. Once they’ve built courses in the basement, their littler sister’s room, and the living room, they can take Chrono Bomb outdoors and see where they can make a maze outside, or maybe to Grandma’s house, or wherever else kids go!

Check out our Toy Insider Mom defusing bombs and being the real MVP on The Wendy Williams Show in the video below! (Chrono Bomb starts at 2:50).

About the author

Deanna Atkins

Deanna Atkins

Deanna Atkins is the editorial assistant at Adventure Publishing Group. She helps the editorial team on leading trade magazines The Toy Book and The Licensing Book, and contributes online at toybook.com, licensingbook.com, and thebigtoybook.com. When she’s not trying to keep up with Toy Insider Mom Laurie Schacht, she can be found reviewing kids’ CDs, DVDs, and books while daydreaming about the upcoming How to Train Your Dragon sequel and reading the dictionary. Follow her on Twitter @Deeeannuh and keep up with her bi-weekly, sometimes funny commentaries on toybook.com.

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