Sneaky Sabotage

This game combines many of my favorite elements. It works well with large groups. It encourages puzzle solving and critical thinking. It’s cooperative (for the most part), which generally involves a lower probability that someone will storm out in the middle of the game. It’s a little silly and involves role playing both of which all members of my family, really enjoy. It’s average play time is probably about 30 minutes, but it can be played for less time or a lot longer and still be fun. While it does have limited re-usability, I think it is well worth the price and will provide many hours of quality family time.

Sneaky Sabotage Details

Product: Sneaky Sabotage
Company: Finders Seekers
Website: https://sneakysabotage.com
Recommended Age Range: Box says 14 and up. What is it with these games? My 9 year old LOVED this.
Price Range: ~$30
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review

My family LOVES Finders Seekers. (You can read my full review here.) I think it is such a great way to get kids exercising their brains and having fun at the the same time. When I started receiving promotional emails about their new game, Sneaky Sabotage, I ordered it right away even though 3 of my kids were not even in the recommended age range. I didn’t know exactly what we were getting, but I figured if it was too old, we would just save it until they were old enough. It turns out, it’s a lot of fun now.

This game is sort of a cross between the puzzles within the Finders Seekers boxes and the game One Night Ultimate Werewolf (which is another one of our family’s favorites — my review is here). In this game, the round starts with each player secretly choosing a character card. Most players will simply be “agents” who are trying to solve the puzzle and determine the secret code word. However, one person will be a “saboteur,” who is surreptitiously working AGAINST the team, trying to thwart their attempts at uncovering the secret word. An “insider” has some extra information that will help the team solve the puzzle, but they don’t want to give away their identity.

Just like in One Night Ultimate Werewolf, this game comes with audio that you need to play on a device. Unlike One Night Ultimate Werewolf, the game doesn’t have an app, simply a webpage that has different videos for you to select depending on the length of the puzzle. You can check those videos out here. At the beginning of each round, everone closes their eyes. The saboteur and the insider each open their eyes, one at a time, and read the clue on the back of the puzzle. Then, everyone opens their eyes and tries to solve the puzzle for the duration of the time. Could you play without the device? Yes, but it would be good to play with the videos first, so that the person leading the game knows what to say.

The puzzles themselves are of a decent difficulty level. They range from fairly easy to very difficult, but most of them are in a happy spot in the middle that require just enough out-of-the-box thinking to feel satisfying. The hints we’ve found to mostly be comically unhelpful, like “there is a hidden word,” but then some of the other ones are also maybe a little too helpful. It does not detract from the amount of fun we get from playing, but it does make it really hard to identify the insider, since the information they have is often either not very helpful or obvious.

We’ve had a lot of fun playing this game. My kids really enjoy the role playing aspect and are always hoping to be a sabateur. I really enjoy the puzzle solving and am always hoping to be an agent. The one time I was the saboteur, I saw the answer fairly quickly and then just had to subtly waste time for a few minutes. My daughter is the most obvious of sabateur’s asking us to look at skin irritations and using other obvious distraction techniques. While you might not expect it, somehow this game involves a lot of laughing, which is really my main goal when playing with my kids.

The only downside to this game is that there are a limited number of puzzles (only 24 that come in the box), so our specific family will only be able to work through each of those puzzles once, then we may pass it on to someone else. Each game has 4 rounds and so uses 4 puzzles by default, meaning we can play this game 6 times before we use up all the puzzles. Personally, I am hoping that the company comes out with inexpensive “expansion packs,” but even if not, I still feel like this game is well worth the value.

As someone who regularly buys Finder Seekers and other one-time boxed games like Hunt a Killer, I am no stranger to paying for an experience. It’s cheaper than taking my family of 6 to the movies! Just know that the replayability is limited. However, unlike the Finders Seekers boxes, the items within this game are not “used up” or damaged in any way, so you should have no problem passing it on to a new family when you are done.

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