Disclosure: We received a copy of this game for free to play with and review. Opinions are our own and links to Amazon.com for products are affiliate links.

Amazon’s Alexa can do so many things. You can have her turn on your lights, reorder things from Amazon and no she can help you play a board game. Voice Originals: When in Rome is the first ever Alexa connected board game. We received a copy of this game to review. When I was asked if I wanted to review it I said that I did not have an Amazon Echo but learned that you can download the Amazon Alexa app and use that to play the game. So I said, “Sure!” because we like board games so much in our house.

We played this game as a family with the kids on one team and the parents on another team. It may sound like the decks were stacked but the kids beat us by more than half the points.

What I liked most about the game was that I did not have to explain the rules at all. That is always my job and it is a thankless one because b the time you are done explaining the rules no one wants to play anymore or they’ve forgotten more than half of what you told them and then you re expected to know all the rules inside and out to settle any disputes. And woe to you if you interpreted a rule incorrectly. Well, you do not have to worry about that at all because Alexa takes care of all of that once you ask her to start a new game. She asks you to pick two teams, Red or Blue. Then she asks the questions and directs players around the board. You can also have her repeat any questions to make sure that everyone heard them correctly.

Gameplay is fun and pretty quick.

The gameboard is a map of the world with several major cities highlighted. Each team has an airplane piece and they place it on a city to start. Alexa asks head to head questions to determine which team goes first. Then on your turn you are asked a multiple choice question by a native speaker from that city. If you get it right then you make a friend in that city and you put a friend piece on the board. This friend can help you as you travel around the board.

Your normal travel is from city to connected city, one at a time and only one city away. However, if you have a friend in a city you can hop over that city and go right on to another city on the other side of it. Build up enough friends and you can globe trot quickly on a single turn.

As you progress through the game souvenirs show up for you to collect. If you collect a souvenir in a city then you gain additional points. The nice thing is that Alexa keeps track of all the points that each team has earned and she give regular updates about who is in the lead. The game lasts about six rounds or until all the souvenirs have been claimed. In our game three souvenirs were placed on the board throughout the game. The kids ended p winning two of them which gave them 14 additional points, 7 per souvenir)

Players can also win upgrade cards throughout the game. these can do different things like let players bypass the Head to Head competition and board their flights first (take their turn first) or they can win cards that allow them to go directly to a city. You can even get a card that allows players to request a different question from the native speaker.

Playing without an Amazon Echo was interesting. You had to manually push a button on the phone to engage Alexa and it took us a while to figure that out. It was a bit frustrating until we learned that. Once that was done, however, we smoothly sailed all over the world. The kids liked it so much, that they asked to play it again the next morning.

When In Rome Retails for $29.99 can can be purchased from Amazon.com.