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

Product Information

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.

Men At Work is a stacking and balancing game from the makers of Junk Art, in which players compete as workers on a building site who are carefully constructing a tower whilst avoiding accidents and, maybe, earning Employee of the Month awards. Play continues until either one player has the required number of Worker of the Month certificates (between 3 and 5, depending on the number of players), in which case that player wins, or until only one player has any safety certificates left, in which case that player wins. The cleanup hook has a handy measuring stick on it for those situations in which the highest piece isn’t clear. On the other hand, some of the most rewarding moments in Men at Work emerge from the creation of the construction site. The surest footholds are usually closer to the table, while girders grow more skewampus with every inch of elevation, often in ways that aren’t immediately apparent because Men at Work doesn’t usually soar all that high.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.

However, I do often play games with non-gamer friends and family; having something that will draw them in or work well for a wide range of ages is a plus.There are support pieces, which form the base of the structure, as well as wooden girders in four colors that are used to grow the structure. The cleanup aspect of the game is also pretty fun; it’s a different challenge trying to fish that brick out of the somewhat collapsed structure without knocking anything else off. I recently dinged a stacking game for being too light, and I’m relieved to report that Men at Work is anything but flimsy.

Instruction cards are two-sided, with one side showing the piece to be placed and the other showing special rules. 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. The Job Site looks messy but having no accidents is one key to victory (and a steady hand helps too).

In either case, I usually have lots of fun with them, even if I don’t win which happens more times than not. The hardest thing for most players to remember is the revealed Instruction Card text—some of it is short-hand to fit on the card, but the rules have a thorough reference section.