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

Product Information

The structure is stable enough in general that you don’t have to hold your breath, although players do have to be careful not to jostle the table.

Dexterity games are often dismissed as being activities more than they are games, but Men at Work proves that notion doesn’t always apply. I recently dinged a stacking game for being too light, and I’m relieved to report that Men at Work is anything but flimsy.The best worker wins – depending on the number of players, earning a certain amount of Employee of the Month awards wins the game.

You can test where you want to place it first before committing but if you cause anything to fall it counts as an accident.

I had my doubts, but I knew enough about the theme and gameplay that I went in prepared to cause accidents and watch other people have to clean up my mess. It arrives courtesy of Pretzel Games, creators of the lovely Junk Art and Flick ‘Em Up, the latter of which isn’t a stacking game but still requires tactility and dexterity. In these games, you want the central structure to grow, as it creates the stress response of not wanting to be the one to make it crash. If you ever played something like Rhino Hero, or built a house of cards, and enjoy creating these teetering erections, you’re really going to like Men At Work.

This makes a great gateway game, an icebreaker game, or something light to start or end a game night. I think my favourite part was hearing the exclamations spoken under breath while a player is attempting a particularly risky stack. If the piece which succumbs to gravity’s irresistible pull hits the table, the player who caused it to happen loses one of their safety certificates. Designed by Rita Modl and produced by Pretzel Games, Men at Work will test your dexterity and have you building to dizzying heights. Men at Work is an absolute blast, and one of the only games my group begs me to bring week after week.By striving to place the highest piece each turn, not only can you earn an Employee of the Month award from Boss Rita, but you also raise the bar for your opponents, making it more difficult for them to earn those same awards and keep up.

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. The building components and the meeples are all wood (well, minus those hats) and are smooth with no rough areas or imperfections. Once the pieces are set up, the deck of cards is shuffled with Boss Rita placed within the top quarter of the deck (more about Boss Rita later).The idea of stacking objects while maintaining their structural integrity isn’t the reason I play board games, but any time I play a game where I have resources or tokens in my supply, I find myself stacking them anyway, so why not put that skill to the test in a way I can laugh at and be laughed at right back? And then we’d bicker, because while stacking is obviously central to a stacking game, it’s the thing behind the stacking that matters. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Our dinner reservation isn't for another 40 minutes so let's play a game to pass the time until then!