A sad fact, wombats are indeed considered critically endangered. This is really sad because when you read the comic strip included with the game you’ll learn all about what truly wonderful little creatures they are. But what does this have to do with the game itself? Well, in fairness, aside from the link to the Oatmeal comic strip and the cute artwork on the cards, wombats don’t really feature at all and I guess it could just as easily be Hand to Hand Koala’s or anything really. However, that said, the artwork on the cards is cute, it’s a good game title and if it brings some awareness to the plight of the poor wombat then I’m all for that. Final Thoughts

The creators describe Hand-to-Hand Wombat as “a social deduction game for people who aren’t into social deduction games”. Players are secretly assigned roles, either ‘Good Wombat’ or ‘Bad Wombat’ (wombats are known for their binary systems of morality), whereupon Good Wombats must construct towers together, while Bad Wombats try to disrupt the process. This is all done with eyes closed, and, after a set time limit, the group must stop and try to identify the Bad Wombats. CAN YOU AND YOUR TEAM BUILD THREE TOWERS BEFORE THE OTHER TEAM DESTROYS THEM? CAN YOU DO ALL OF THAT WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED? Scoring… At the end of each round, only 1 team can score. Scores are determined depending on how many spindles are complete, or incomplete as the case may inevitably be. The bad team scores 2 points if no spindles have been completed and 1 point if 2 spindles are incomplete whereas the good team will score 1 point for 2 complete spindles and 2 points if all spindles are successfully completed.First off, each game is a ‘best of three rounds’ with the Bad Wombat team getting points purely for the Good Wombats failing to complete all of their towers in time. This is important because it’s not too hard to notice who the Bad Wombat is and vote them out of the game after the very first round, leading to the Bad Wombat player having to sit out and watch as everyone else fumbles around blindly. Thankfully this usually only lasts 90 seconds to three minutes at the most but it is still pretty boring for a game that’s centred around fast and chaotic action. Swinbourne’s research into southern hairy-nosed wombat mating techniques – bum biting included – is now being used by the University of Queensland to develop artificial insemination technologies. Hand to Hand Wombat is the latest game from Exploding Kittens that combines the social deduction element you may love in Werewolf with the dextrous joy of building you should remember from childhood memories. Elan Lee, co-creator of Exploding Kittens had a thought, a reminiscence you might say. He pondered the wine scene from the immortal classic The Princess Bride and wanted a game that would instil that same deadly necessity of choice and deduction. Enter Cory O’Brien (who worked on the online social deduction game Among Us) and Carol Mertz and after hours upon hours of playtesting and discussion, the final game dynamics were ready for retail. Listen, we need to talk about Wombats Much like Among Us or other social deduction games like One Night Werewolf, one or more players in Hand-to-Hand Wombat will secretly become the "Bad Wombat," aiming to destroy towers that the rest of the players are trying to build. During a round of play, when a timer is up, players will discuss, argue and vote out the player that is believed to be the Bad Wombat. To win the game all your wombat team has to do is reach 3 points. Sounds easy? Well, it’s surprisingly difficult to build not just 1, or even 2 but three towers with your eyes shut under the pressure of a 90 second timer knowing there is likely a bad wombat among you.

It is a brutal process, you can come in the next morning and there will be chunks of fur all around the enclosure where they’ve just had a huge mating bout,” Swinbourne says. Secondly, once you’ve played a few rounds of it, there’s not much else to see beyond some variant roles that do little to spice up gameplay and are all (with the notable exception of the wombat that switches to the Bad Wombat team) Good Wombats. Including these, we found, makes the game more difficult and the Bad Wombat even more likely to win on points but makes it so much easier to spot the Bad Wombat and force them to sit out.A female will go and bite the bum of a male and then run off, and he has to chase her. Or the male will bite her rump, which will cause her to run and he will chase her,” she says. “It’s very much a part of the ritual.” You cannot open your eyes, blindfolds are helpful in stopping potential cheats but you can also only use 1 hand so when you have to cover your eyes with your hand it helps to stop the temptation of using it by accident. You know, like those accidental hand touches we see in the penalty area, right Maradona? At the beginning of the game, you're given a role card : you'll either be a good Wombat or a bad Wombat Each game round is 90 seconds, plus a vote. When the timer starts, everyone closes their eyes (no peeking!). Builder Wombats try to assemble the three towers, using one hand only, placing the widest piece of each tower at the base (the six nub piece), then the five and so on. You can communicate with everyone at the table. You can pass pieces to each other. You can even place your hand over a spindle to prevent others from messing with it. You can never take pieces out of the box to sort or save them.

The Good Wombats win if they successfully build the towers before too many of their teammates have been eliminated. Otherwise the Bad Wombats win. When the timer runs out, everybody stops, open their eyes, discuss what just happened and votes to cast a player out of the game.To play Hand-to-Hand Wombat, you’re each given a secret identity as a Good Wombat or a Bad Wombat, then everyone closes their eyes. Good wombats build towers; Bad Wombats try to mess with those towers. After the timer is up, everyone opens their eyes and discusses, argues, and votes on who they think is a Bad Wombat. Who do you trust? Who is… bad? Count to 3 again and make your final vote. If more than half the remaining players vote for one person that person is out. Whether they deserved the justice served or not they are ostracised from the game. Left out in the cold so to speak. But remember they DO NOT reveal their true identity so you just don’t know if they really were the bad egg or not.