Rumble in the House – The Royal Rumble Overview

We have had a lot of our friends and their kids over to our house in recent weeks. There is a big difference between having two kids present, versus having 8-10. There are more rumblings happening between kids as they play together and deal with situations between each other. Of course, we all know kids just want to have fun, and learning to deal with other kids sometimes isn’t fun as they might have other ideas than yours.

We know that when the noise first increases, the kids need to go outside to play. The rumblings continue as the kids jump on the trampoline, play games like ‘don’t crack the egg’. Then normally kids go on the hunt to find toys or something new. This just happened to be squirt guns that were left out. No one wants to get wet and shot at first, but with time, the rumble intensifies and everyone wants to shoot everyone else and everyone is soaking wet. 

The rumble then inevitably moves to inside the house where toys and board game are the main attraction. Our kids absolutely love playing board games and enjoy teaching other kids their newest and greatest game they learned. And what do you know…. Rumble in the House matches the recent rumble and intensity from outside. Just like that, there is a royal rumble of ten kids inside the house. Rumble in the House is Em, and Ev’s newest favorite game to play and teach. Although we normally play with 3-4, they know that the game plays up to 6 players. They planned to take advantage of having the extra players available! Rumble in the House was able to be played and enjoyed by many more than just our family.

There is a reason why they have continued to want to play this game. The setup is very easy, and the kids don’t even need help. Form a house using the room tiles, with hallways or doors aligning together. This can be any design as long as you use all 12 tiles. Randomly place one character in each room.

The secret character tokens are placed face down and shuffled, and each player takes two. Lastly, each player picks a color and uses those color markers to keep score. Em and Ev take charge doing this each time, as they get really excited about the game. Each player looks at their character tokens without showing anyone else. The goal is to keep your own (secret) characters on the board as long as possible.

Players then take turns doing one of two different actions. First, you can move any character that is alone into an adjacent room. Second, you can start a fight in a room that has two or more characters. You chose which character loses the fight then remove them from the room into a line on the side.

This can be challenging as players can move any characters, not just their own. If there are characters together in a room, whoever’s turn it is can choose who wins a fight between those standing in the same room. If your character is in a room with another character and its your turn, it’s a good idea to choose the other character to lose the fight to keep yours in.

Players then take turns and slowly characters will bow out of the rumble. Remember to keep track of the order you remove the characters from the tiles as it’s crucial to scoring. When the last character is standing, players gain points according to the order they exited the rumble. The first 2 characters out earn 0 points, the third character out gain 1 point, the next 2 points, and so on. The last character gains 10 points. Players each have 2 characters, so they will add the points earned together and mark it on the score board. The games is played over three rounds, and the player with the most points at the end wins the game.

Players are somewhat trying to deduce who is what character. They do this by paying attention to what decisions other people make in the game. In reality, everyone is just trying to save their own characters from losing the royal rumble. But sadly, your character’s fate is also in the hands of all other players, so you really just can’t win by your choices alone. So when you have a rumbling of kids in your house, Rumble in the House is a great game to pull out to match both the fun and excitement of the game, but also the intensity.

The best part is that this battle game doesn’t actually involve any kind of damage which makes it extremely family friendly. Check with your local game store about availability or watch for copies on Amazon or other online marketplaces like eBay. Games like Rumble in the House empower kids to take charge of game night whether it be with their parents, siblings or friends.

How often do you handle rumbles when they happen in your home?