When I contact the makers of the Tease Game I was urged by its creator to play the game with at least one other couple. The reason for this will become clear below, but I bet your naughty little minds are already exploring the possibilities of playing an adult game with an open minded couple …

I’ll start with first impressions – bloody marvellous. We’ve played a few adult games since we started testing and the finish of the product, printing quality, design and standard of instructions can be variable. Tease is at the top end of the scale, in fact IMHO it’s the best presented game I’ve reviewed. Why? Well, partly because of the pin-up theme, I’m a sucker for that look, but also because it has nice wooden player avatars/counters (as opposed to plastic) and a mock-canvass type finish to the board and box.

Everything follows the pin-up theme from box, through board to game cards – but it’s the game cards where I have to level my first criticism. The text on them is printed in grey, on white this could be a problem but the cards have a variety of pastel coloured backgrounds and this means that especially in low light they are very difficult to read.

Well on to the game play. This is described in the 8 page A5 booklet that accompanies your Tease Game. I’m not going to describe the rules in detail, suffice to say that the game involves traversing the game board by the use of the supplied dice. You are directed by the comprehensive and extensive set of rules to traverse the board, gaining rewards, paying forfeits and becoming increasingly familiar with your playmates. You do this through telling each other secrets, acting out increasingly sexual and intimate actions and eventually acting out your fantasies.

Did I mention that you will also be required to strip when you land on “strip” squares?

We invited a couple we’ve known for years across for drinks and fun to test the Tease Game, telling them we’d picked up this game as a bit of a giggle and thought they’d be up for trying it out. Our experience of previous games meant we thought that as longstanding friends they’d enjoy a bit of risqué fun and an evening of drunken kiss and tell.

Well we only got to level two! Even though drinking is an integral part of the game, bringing with it its consequent reduction of inhibitions.

I ought to explain, the “Reward” and “Forfeit” cards that are used in the game start of at 1 and go up to 5. Depending on the type of game played (and this is laid out in detail in the instructions) you have a different mix of cards, but always cards up to level 5. The way the game is structured means that you have to get to level 5, get naked and act out a fantasy to complete it.

Which is why, as a group of 4 we didn’t complete it. It became apparent that in the early stages we were having fun, telling each other about our sexual fantasies and performing the occasional naughty forfeit. That was our limit, naughty. To progress to the sexual, intensely intimate levels of the game would have taken a different set of people. We even tried a little massage, shoulder massage, not the “chest massage” (and more intimate touching) instructed by the game, it was all a little too much for even very good friends.

When it became apparent that the cards were a little too much for us to countenance we spent the rest of the evening reading them to each other and were able to a) enlighten our friends on a few sexual terms they were unfamiliar with and b) found out they weren’t as sexually naïve as we thought they were from some of their sexual tales!

I like the way in which the game tries to ensure that all players reach the same level of undress and naughtiness together while maintaining fun and the element of competition through “Balance” squares. That reflects the care and attention to detail applied to the construction of the whole game.

When it comes to acting out your fantasies at the end of the game you are provided with some pretty good, pretty popular fantasies and blank fantasy cards for you to add your own particular favourites.

This game is great for couples who swing, I mean really swing. It’s not really possible to fully play the Tease Game with more than two people unless you are ready to get naked and dirty with them. Playing as a couple is OK, we tried it the following night, but the voyeuristic elements of the game obviously don’t work as well – e.g. “player goes into another room to masturbate and the other players walk in after three minutes to watch” – though you can adapt this. We find this with a lot of adult games, unless they press your buttons you have to adapt so when Suze and I hit this particular forfeit we did what the card said but being used to watching each other masturbate it wasn’t quite the same as watching someone else’s partner.

In summary, this is a great game for swingers and adventurous groups of couples but as a game for a couple it has a different dynamic, particularly if you already know each other’s fantasies and kinks. Playing the game at the 1, 2 and perhaps 3 levels of reward/forfeit might be OK of couples who like a bit of raunchy fun with friends, but unless you take the game to its ultimate naked and sexual end you will explore only a fraction of the Tease Game’s potential. A beautifully produced and well thought-out game but only the truly sexually adventurous will be able to play it to conclusion.