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Beetlez is a new kid's dexterity & memory game from daVinci and Mayfair Games.
Players: 3-6
Playing Time: 10-15 minutes
Difficulty: 1 (of 10)
The Components
 Beetlez comes with 100 tiles, 28 cards, 1 bag, and 1 rulesheet.
Tiles: These small tiles are printed full-color on medium-weight cardboard and are linen-textured. Each has a simple picture of one type of food, a refrigerator, or a strange lightbulb on one side, and a refrigerator on the other. The tiles are pretty simple, but easy to distinguish.
Cards: These half-sized cards are printed on medium-weight cardstock. 21 of them are "taste" cards which show which food the player really likes, which two he sort of likes, and which one he really hates. The other 7 cards all mark penalties: 6 for being spotted and 1 for being greedy.
Some graphical work has been done on the cards and so they have more character than the tiles. They also use some simple and clear iconography, matching the foods shown on the tiles, and using black dots for stuff you like and red splats for penalties.
Bag: A lightweight bag with a drawstring. Its only purpose is to store the tiles when you're not playing the game, but it's nice that the tiles don't roll around the box as a result.
Rulesheet: A 2-page rulesheet that explains the simple rules for this game, and also includes an illustrated example of scoring.
The Gameplay
The object of Beetlez is to grab the most foods of types you like and none of ones you don't like.
Setup: The food tiles and light bulbs are all mixed in the middle of the table, face-down, along with a number of "safety" (double-sided refrigerator) tiles equal to the number of players minus one.
Each player takes a face-down taste card which lists four foods: three he likes and one he hates. (There are six foods total, so two other foods that the player doesn't like but doesn't hate aren't listed.)
At the start of the first round each player will get some time to examine his taste card and memorize it. Once he places it face-down again he can't look at it for the rest of the game.
Playing a Round: A designated player shouts "go", and each player begins flipping over tiles in the middle of the table, one at a time, using only one hand. After he sees each tile he must either take it or put it back face-down. He should take foods he likes and not ones he doesn't.
If a player reveals a light bulb he must yell, "Light!" Now each player must start searching for safety tiles instead. When a player finds a safety tile he yells "Out!" Eventually there will be only one player left, who failed to get to safety. He must take a "Spotted" card as a penalty. This will award minus points at the end of the game.
After a Round: Players keep the foods they took and the light bulb. Safety tiles are returned to the center of the table and all those tiles are reshuffled. Then the players start a new round of play.
Ending the Game: The game ends after three rounds of play. Now players score everything: +2 for each favorite food tile, +1 for each desirable food tile, -2 for each hated food tile, -1 for each other food tile, and +2 for each light bulb. Each "Spotted" card is worth -2 to -4 points (as shown on the card).
Finally whoever has the most tiles gets a "Greedy!" card, worth another -4.
Whoever has the highest point total wins.
Relationships to Other Games
Beetlez is probably best-classified as a memory game, like the classic Concentration, the recent Dawn Under or even daVinci's own Moby Pick, another kid's game of memory and dexterity.
The Game Design
Unfortunately, Beetlez doesn't really hold up to play except by the youngest kids.
The main problem with Beetlez is that the memory component is quite weak. You have to remember three items--your favorite foods--and that's it. There's a small secondary memory component, where you should try and remember where a refrigerator is if you turn it up early in the round, but that's pretty incidental. Overall these elements aren't going to tax many folks' memories. (Unfortunately any additional memory components end up destroyed by the fact that you reshuffle all the tiles after each round.)
The dexterity component of the game really isn't that exciting either, since it mostly involves turning up tiles as fast as you can.
Granted, there can be some excitement, and flipping through tiles quickly can get your blood flowing. I also did appreciate the theme. There's some silliness about British musicians, but at heart the idea of cockroaches scuttling about, then panicking when a light is flicked on comes across very well.
On the whole I'll admit to having some troubles reviewing kids' games, because I'm not a kid, I haven't been for awhile, and I don't have kids. But this game generally strikes me as flat and uninspiring. The age range reads "5+", and most folks who played agreed that if you got much past 5 this game would lose much of its interest. For a game that does have interesting memory and dexterity components, I'd instead suggest Moby Pick from the same publisher, though that has a slightly increased age suggestion of "7+".
I give Beetlez a "2" out of "5" for Substance: it's only suggested for the 5-6 age range.
Conclusion
Beetlez is a dexterity and memory game that's mostly about flipping tiles fast and remembering just a couple of different things. It might work for the age group 5-6, but not much beyond that. Look instead at Mayfair's better, earlier release, Moby Pick, if you want this sort of game.
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