My husband loves mazes so years ago I bought the Labyrinth board game with high hopes. Sadly, ours was missing pieces and instructions! (This was before I knew all the ins and outs of buying used games.) The game sat, unloved, on the shelf for years. Then friends invited us over for a game afternoon and one of the games on the table was Labyrinth. We jumped at the chance.
My instincts were right. Labyrinth is a great game and one that we would have been playing all this time…
But let’s get into the rules, how to play and see if this is your next family game night game!
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What you Need for Labyrinth
First, you need to learn about the game board. The board has several tiles that are attached to it and a lot of open space. There are enough tiles to fill in the board with one extra.
There are also cards with images and four movers. Labyrinth is a four player game.
Setting up Labyrinth
To start, you fill in all the empty spaces with tile places. Next, shuffle the cards and hand them all out so each player has an even amount of cards. The movers get placed on their opening spots in the corners.
Playing Labyrinth
The first player, looks at her top card. This is the tile she will need to make her way to. She keeps the card, or mission, secret. Next, she uses the extra tile to slide the maze pieces along. She does this by placing it at an open end of the board and pushing all the tiles along. The tile that get pushed off the other side becomes the next players extra tile.
She now can chose to move her game piece anywhere along the path that lines up. She does not have to move if she doesn’t want to. It is not necessary to land on her mission tile. Sometimes it is possible and sometimes you have to try to set yourself up for a good move next turn.
When her turn is over, the second player picks up his top card to see what his mission is. He then uses the extra title to slide the maze along. The only move he can not make is to slide the maze back the way it just moved—undoing the last player’s turn.
He can now choose to move his game piece along the maze.
A player must move the maze.
The game continues with the maze ever changing. When a player lands on their mission tile, they turn over the card and look at the next card. She now has to make her way to that tile on her next turn.
Occasionally, a player’s mover is on the tile that gets shoved off the game board. When this happens, the mover is placed in the same row of tiles on the other side of the game board.
Winning Labyrinth
The first player to complete their mission cards wins.
Tips for Playing
First, if you are playing with younger kids, you might give them the advantage of being able to look at their mission cards and choosing what order to do them in.
Second, the first two times we played, the maze seemed too easy. The third time, we all were frustrated with the maze being full of nothing but dead ends. When setting up the game, you place the tile randomly. The very first time we played, we started setting it up so that the maze worked. The third time we un-lucked out so that the middle of the game was blocked in. To keep this from happened, we now place the tiles and have a look. If it’s too simple or too hard, we take the tiles off, shuffle and start again. After all, games are meant to be fun not frustrating.
Third, we learned that Labyrinth is a great game to play in teams. There are a lot of decisions to be made and lots of possible ways to move.
What we Like
First, the quality is top notch, as is the case with all the Ravensburger games that we’ve tried. Next, the idea of the game is simple but engaging and challenge. Sometimes it feels like there are no good moves and that you will never reach your tile. But then by the time it’s your turn again, the board is completely different and the path is easy to see.
As a parent, this game is prefect for critical thinking, planning and risk assessment. The images are cute and detailed.
What We Didn’t Like
As I mentioned, sometimes you can get a game set up that is very frustrating. The other thing that might take away from the game is that sometimes a player’s turn takes a while as they trying to figure out their move. Really, aside from that, I can’t think of anything that I would change. (Except for our copy’s missing pieces and the time we wasted by not playing.)
Is Labyrinth Worth Adding to you Family Game Shelf?
By far, Labyrinth is a great game. It’s full of thoughtful decisions but is fast moving and just enough luck to make it great. I would recommend adding Labyrinth to your Family Game Shelf.
To get your copy shop here; Canadians here. They also have Labyrinth Junior, Labyrinth 3D, Oceans, Disney, Mario Bros and so many more. See the different ones here.
If you’re looking for more fun like Labyrinth, check out the Clue escape room line of games, Qwirkle and Mastermind. And for fun for everyone check out our Family Game Shelf Shop where you find tons of fun with seasonal and original games like our Whacky Putt dice mini golf game!
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