Pretzel Games | Men at Work | Family Game | Ages 8+ | 30-45 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

On the other hand, some of the most rewarding moments in Men at Work emerge from the creation of the construction site. Grab you hard hat and complete the health and safety checks because there are bound to be some accidents in Men at Work. For example, in the picture below, I have the option of stacking either a purple or black girder wherever I like onto the work site, but it must be touching one of the grey supports. The player who first gains the required number of Employee of the Month certificates wins, or if they are the only player remaining with Safety Certificates.

So if the card that is face down shows a girder, you’d look at the girder instruction on the flipped-up card and follow that instruction – place a girder touching another girder of the same color, touching only one other girder etc. Its spills are hilarious, offloading the burden of cleanup to some other poor sucker, and although its risks are soaring and mighty, they’re adequately compensated when achieved. By way of examples, a worker might have to be placed and then have a brick and a beam balanced on them, or they might have to be placed right on the end of a girder.

You must balance workers on the girders and, to make things even more nerve racking, your builders may have to carry little wooden bricks or wooden beams on their shoulders. Both options have their appeal, pitting caution and risk against each other, and either can ultimately lead to victory. It arrives courtesy of Pretzel Games, creators of the lovely Junk Art and Flick ‘Em Up, the latter of which isn’t a stacking game but still requires tactility and dexterity. You lose one of your safety certificates; if you lose your last safety certificate you are out of the game.

In this dexterity game, players are construction workers at a job site stacking building materials, trying to avoid accidents, and attempting to become employee of the month. Since nothing but the supports can touch the table any girders with one end touching the table must be pushed back on to the structure. Accidents happen when a player places an item, and something falls from the building site onto the playable surface. I have a great time playing it with people my own age too, and after a couple of drinks peoples’ judgement and overconfidence come through, with hilarious and disastrous results. Men at Work is an absolute blast, and one of the only games my group begs me to bring week after week.In either case, I usually have lots of fun with them, even if I don’t win which happens more times than not. Gingerly placing girders, builders, bricks and, beams onto a construction site, building upon pieces placed before. The youngest player sets up the construction site my organizing 3 supports, 1 of each colour of girder and one worker.

A worker has to stand on one of the two colours available, and a girder has to be one of the colours. This is a really lovely dexterity game with beautiful wooden components, a great box with preformed insert, and lots of replayability.Give each player two safety certificates, then make sure there’s a good supply of all of the pieces all around the table so they’re within reach of the players. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. If you already have a dexterity game you really like and you don’t play it that often, Men at Work might not have enough there to completely change your stance on the genre. I expected to feel worse after watching a girder fall on a couple of injured employees, but there’s something disturbingly amusing about it too, knowing someone has to go in with the rescue hook and pry that corpse out from under the wreckage.

But that absence of justice is a form of justice in its own right, leveling the playing field as surely as a bulldozer prepared this edifice’s foundations.

The back of the rule book has a full of explanation for each of these rules, and every card is numbered, so finding the one you’re looking-up is nice and quick while you’re learning. At the same time, it's challenging enough to make a great filler as part of a hobbyist's game night.