Travelling, camping, on holiday or generally just hanging out with kids, most parents now rely on a host of electronic gadgets to keep them happy/quiet/entertained/out of mischief. But sometimes some of us hanker after a wee bit of interaction with our children – and maybe even a little ol’ traditional game.

When I was sent a new but definitely not electronic game Zip-It for testing I was sceptical. It seemed very unlikely that teenager Little Miss Outdoors would even glance at the game in its zipped-up brown cloth case let alone do me the honour of playing it. I was wrong! Very wrong.

Perhaps Little Miss is bored of all things electronic or maybe she fancied, just at that precise moment, some time with her old mother. Maybe the wave of teenage grumpiness had lifted for a few minutes just at that second. But whatever the reason she did immediately agree to play the game.

Zip-It up and go

Zip-It is based on the Scrabble format but is far quicker and easier to play. Splitting the lettered cubes – rather like dice but with different letters on each side – players are then pitched against each other with the goal of being the first to use all the letters in words displayed like a crossword or Scrabble format. It sounds a bit complicated but it’s not.

So with your dozen letters you must quickly form words that interlock and make sense to use up all your hand. The first person to do so wins (so long as they have correctly spelt each word). You play 10 rounds for the final winner.

Little Miss loved it! She was able to quickly grasp the concept and could use her surprisingly wide teenager’s vocab (who knew?!) to pose a reasonable challenge for her old wordsmith mother. I won, of course, but when she then challenged the G-Force to a few games she was delighted that she could sometimes beat him. The G-Force will admit that vocab and spelling are not his strong points but quick wittedness most certainly is so they were well matched.

I was then surprised again when Little Miss sat down to play the game with one of her friends a few days later.

Zip-It is from the makers of the better known Banagrams games and is easily transportable. Brilliantly, it doesn’t rely on batteries or a charger. It would be a great game to take on a long journey, especially on the train or plane (we will be doing this when we go on holiday this summer). It is a great game for playing in the evening or on a rainy day while camping or on a family self-catering holiday.

I am surprised by how much we’ve enjoyed a back to last century style of game. Thanks Zip-It for sending it out.

* ZIP-IT costs £14.99 and is available to buy from all good book and toy stores on the High Street or online from Winning Moves.