Publisher: Out of the Box Publishing
Designer: Keith Meyers
Year: 2011
Players: Two to ten players
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 20 to 30 Minutes
Retail Price: $27.99
There’s a new family game from Out of the Box. Frantically paced, exciting, fun, not for the cranky or overly sensitive. Shake ‘n Take has some nice, high quality components too. The dry erase markers have bug green alien tops on them that are great, and the rules are simple and well done. There are 10 game boards that are double-sided, one side for grown-ups and the other easier side for the younger players.
The game is simple and you can teach it three minutes. Each player selects a board. Each board is covered with little drawings of aliens that have one of five basic body shapes: circle, square, triangle, heart, and star. The easier side of the boards have shapes only, they don’t look like aliens.
If you have less than 6 players, you use one marker, shaker, and die. For 6-10 players you use both shakers, markers and dice. The shakers are small, clear, egg shaped objects with a green die in them. When you have the shaker, you keep shaking it until you get the die to land on the one face that has a picture of an alien face on it.
Now, whoever goes first takes the marker and a shape die. The person to the right of them takes the shaker die and waits for player to roll the shape die.
The player rolls the shape die, then they start using the marker to circle the aliens on their board that match the shape they rolled. They can reroll at any time and keep circling.
Meanwhile, the player with the shaker starts shaking. As soon as they can get the die in the shaker to land with the alien face up, they pull the marker out of the players hand, their turn is over. They pass the shaker to the next person, roll the shape die, and start circling aliens on their board, while the next player is trying to get the shaker 
This continues, with the shaker marker and shape die moving around the table until someone circles the final shape on their board. Whoever does that is the winner. With 6 to 10 players, you have both shakers and markers moving around the table.
It really gets frantic and silly as the markers move around the table, dice rolling, shaking, circling, shouting, laughter. It’s been a lot of fun playing the game, as markers get grabbed and everyone starts saying “Doh!”. The games are quick too.
My only recommendation is not to play with those who don’t have the temperament for it. You know, somebody who might get mad if you rip a marker out of their hand after 2 seconds. It may tick some people off. Again, it has physical aspects to the game so take that into consideration before playing, it might not be the best game for great-grandma.
My wife recommended that they add the basic shapes around the edge of the board. This way, when you are done with a certain shape, you can cross it out, to make it easier to keep track of what you still need to get.
Overall it is a fun family game and a good way to get a night of gaming started.
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This is a silly but fun game. Certainly for the family gaming crowd but other gamers probably won’t have much time for it: too light, too “twitchy” (another word we’ll need to add to our TGG glossary), and the marker snatching might be a bit much for adults who aren’t used to having something yanked out of their hand.
The marker snag pissed my mom off to no end. Hahahahaha!
I agree, there is no depth and no strategy. It’s just a fun way to spend 20 minutes with the family.