PaddleSmash review

REVIEW -During the summer I am continuously looking for new and fun ways to keep my kids active and trying new things. I was really excited to be able to review PaddleSmash. A fun way to combine pickleball and Roundnet into one portable game.

⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $199.99
Where to buy: PaddleSmash.com

What is it?

A new game that combines pickleball and Roundnet into one game.

What’s included?

• Two pickleballs
• Four pickleball paddles
• Net with poles
• Base that also doubles as a carrying case

Design and features

I had pretty high hopes when I was looking at this game. The concept is so fun. You get to play with pickleballs and pickleball paddles. The goal is to bounce the ball off the base, which is surrounded by an angled net all around. You and your teammate have three hits to get the ball back into the net area where it should bounce back out to give the other team three hits to get the ball back into the net for your turn again. Think bump, set, spike, is how they tell you to imagine it in your head. There are plenty of videos of other people playing this game, and it looks like a lot of fun.

Putting together this game was very simple. First put the base, which is also the case to carry everything, flat on the ground. Then you insert the poles into the slots on the net and place the other side of the pole with the net already connected, into the provided holes around the base. They go in at a slant, but also slide in easily if they are at the right angle. That’s all. It’s now ready to play. I love that the pickleball color is neon yellow. There was a lot of running around finding the ball, and it was so easy to see.

The instructions say to make sure you give yourself a good ten minutes to learn how to play and practice getting the hang of how everything feels. I was hoping that the base would be more springy. I remember watching some other people playing a game at the beach once, it was spike ball, and I thought that this would be something like that. In Spike ball, there is a trampoline style base that you bounce the ball off of for the other team. This game does NOT have a bouncy base. It is solid, and getting the pickleball to bounce is not as easy as I had hoped it would be. Combine the plastic, non-bouncy, base, and the net around the edges, and it makes for a challenge. I had the hardest time getting the ball to go in the net area, and bouncing back out. I could get it into the net, but almost always it would only do a small bounce, or try to bounce off the net. I didn’t get the smash part of PaddleSmash.

I was excited to let my kids try this game. They range in ages from 5-13, and it was hilarious. Even if they got the volley between teammates, it wouldn’t make it out of the net for the next team. However hard they tried, they just couldn’t make the game work with the rules that were provided. Pretty soon they were getting angry at each other, and we switched things up. First we moved the whole game onto the trampoline. They tried the normal rules on the trampoline, but it quickly evolved into a silly game of no rules, and they made up a crazy point system. I was just glad they weren’t getting angry anymore.

The next group of people I played this game with were a little more experienced, older kids, and they still had troubles with the smash part. Their ages were from 16-24, and some of the parents also joined in the fun. Since it is only a four person game, we had a lot of turns switching in and out different players. The general consensus was that we hated the base that it was supposed to bounce off of. Maybe if it were bouncy it would be easier. Maybe if we were all professional athletes we wouldn’t struggle so much. The game was really fun, but only with the rules that we made up. Each group would find something that worked for them, and we would all laugh until we cried at some of the things we would do. Some of the variations included making funny animal sounds while hitting the ball, and after a certain number of animals the ball had to make it back to the barn (the net) and if it made it in and bounced back out the points would double. If it only made it into the net, everyone who was able to hit the ball would get a point. Another idea they had was that both teams each had a ball, and whoever could volley their ball the most would win. If they happened to knock out the other team’s ball they would get double points. If they could bounce the ball out of the net, and continue to hit the ball, the points would triple. The smaller kids would just try to hit the ball to anyone.

When we were all finished with the game, everything fit nicely into the base. You have to turn the base upside down, and place everything just right, but then it closes and you don’t have to hunt for the paddles or balls the next time you play. I really enjoyed how compact it felt after it was all put away.

Final thoughts

Maybe it is because I have a younger group of players, or we just really aren’t coordinated at sports, but this game was not easy. We would be able to volley back and forth, but getting it into the net, and actually bounce back out for the other team to hit the ball just wasn’t happening. After we changed up the rules to match our group of players we had a lot of fun. This game can be fun, but the price is not.

What I like about PaddleSmash

• Neon yellow balls
• Quality made products
• Compact
• Easy to put together
• Easy to put away
• Can be adapted to different ages

What needs to be improved?

• Not bouncy enough
• Original rules are hard for a lot of ages
• Expensive

Price: $199.99
Where to buy: PaddleSmash.com
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by PaddleSmash. PaddleSmash did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.

Check out these other game reviews!

• Lacorsa Grand Prix Game review
• District Noir card game review – a light yet fun game for two players