Shake It Up: A Family Handshake Game from GrandCamp Adventures

Admit it. You've always been intrigued by secret rituals and signals. So what if you're a grandparent? You can still experience the fun of a secret family handshake. GrandCamp Adventures makes it easy with this set of cards that can be used for three different activities. Grab some grandkids and use the cards to develop your family's secret handshake. We chose the potato masher, followed by a high five and an exploder. . . Wait a minute. I'm giving away our family secrets!

Ages six to sixty were on board when we sat down to play Shake It Up, and for over an hour, no one quit or cried or got bored. We were concentrating too hard on remembering a sequence of funky handshake moves, and we were having fun.

Shake It Up, the new game from GrandCamp Adventures, is not a word game nor an adventure game nor a logic game. It's something almost completely different. It's also easy to play: Pass out the large cards face down. The first player chooses a handshake maneuver from his stack and demonstrates it with the player on his left. That player adds a maneuver from his own stack and repeats the process. The process continues until the players are remembering a lengthy sequence of movements.

The game can be played competitively. If you fail to remember the sequence, you are out, and the game continues until there's only one person left. It can also be played cooperatively, with everyone putting their heads together to remember the sequence.

The handshake moves come in three different skill levels. If there are very young kids in your group, play with just the first level or the first two levels. The level three maneuvers are complex. There was one handshake card that none of us could figure out. We simply put it aside.

Once the game is over, put your heads together to develop a secret family handshake. Each member of the family can choose one move, or you can try different card combinations until you come up with one that the group can agree on. That brings up one of the best aspects of Shake It Up: It naturally lends itself to improvisation and negotiation, those skills that grandparents honed on the playground but that modern grandchildren have less opportunity to practice.

There's one more thing to do with the cards. Flip them over, and you have a large puzzle. My youngest granddaughter was thrilled to recognize the secret handshake scene from Here We Go! She's also a fan of their music CD.

The card set is packaged in a beautiful, sturdy box, which seems a bit ironic. The folks at GrandCamp Adventures are making a name for themselves by thinking out of the box.

See more products from GrandCamp Adventures or learn more about GrandCamp Adventures.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.