How to Play Magic Maze Board Game & Review

Magic Maze is a real-time, co-op game.

Title: Magic Maze

Year Published: 2017

Designer: Kasper Lapp

Publisher: Sit Down!

Players: 1-8

Game Time: ~15 mins

Set-up Time: ~5 mins

Ages: 8+

Theme: Fantasy

Mechanisms: Co-op, Real-Time, Tile Placement

How to win: Steal the Equipment with each character from the Magic Maze Mall and get out before time runs out.

Game Description

After being stripped of all their possessions, a mage, a warrior, an elf, and a dwarf are forced to go rob the local Magic Maze shopping mall for all the equipment necessary for their next adventure. They agree to map out the labyrinth in its entirety first, then find each individual’s favorite store, and then locate the exit. In order to evade the surveillance of the guards who eyed their arrival suspiciously, all four will pull off their heists simultaneously, then dash to the exit. That’s the plan anyway…but can they pull it off?

How to Play Magic Maze

Round-Up

There are a few stressful real-time games I’ve enjoyed, Escapes Temple and Zombies spring to mind. But swapping that ‘Full control over 1 character’ to ‘partial control over all characters’ is very interesting. It means you’re invested in each of the 4 and not just doing your own thing.

Removing communication from the game is something I feel mixed about. It works, it really does but I do miss that frantic ‘Talking while Playing’ that comes with the Escape games and others like Flatline and FUSE.

The steady increase of rules over the various scenarios is cool. They’re not too complicated early on but later levels should probably be added slowly to reduce the number of errors players may make.

Havoc

However, It can be a bit ‘Arms everywhere’ as multiple players reach in to try and grab the same tiny pawn. 4-6 adults, each with hands bigger than a single tile, all reaching over and around each other’s hands to move the pieces is tough. Also, hands hang around and over the board and players wait for space to do their thing.

As with any co-op, there is ‘cheating’… I mean “accidental” in big-finger air quotes cheating. ‘Accidental’ pointing. ‘Accidental’ noises etc Sometimes they’re instinctive and actually accidental… sometimes they’re not!

Oh, and if you tap that ‘Do Something’ pawn in front of me more than once we won’t be able to play the game again until the surgeons remove it from the place I shoved it! 🙂

Magic Maze Rating

Good hectic fun.

I give it 6/10

Magic Maze First Impressions May 2017

This is a brief overview of the rules then we go to my thoughts on it.

0:18 – Overview
0:40 – Game Play
3:45 – Summary

Jesta ThaRogue