Magic Labyrinth

Magic Labyrinth 

Magic Labyrinth is a simple and lovely magnetic finding game that can be easy or very hard.  It is by Drei Magier Spiele and is about 10 years old.  It plays 2-4 players and takes about 20 minutes.

I really like this game and play it plenty with my 4 year old.  However it has very small ball bearings and they are magnetic so this game is definitely not one to be played without serious supervision of young children.  The game says its for 6 and up but this can be played younger and I think younger children love the magnetic aspect of it - but DO NOT play this game without supervising them as it can also be incredible dangerous if any pieces are swallowed.


Game Play

Each player is a little wizard looking for their items that have been lost in a maze.  There is a bag of items (the small blue tokens) from which at the beginning one gets chosen and then the players race to that token represented on the maze map.  The first player to reach the token image on the game board gets to keep the token.  Getting  five tokens wins that wizard the game. 

This seems really simple but the game is all about the set up and how the magnetic aspect of it works.  To set up you take the board out and rearrange all the wall tiles (see image on right) making sure that you do not cut off access to any one square (the rules explain this with pictures very well) then you put the board back on and spin it so you can't remember where you put the walls. Finally you attach your wizards to your "home" corner and off you go with your turn.

One turn is rolling the dice and moving that number of spaces (between 1-4) without hitting any walls underneath. If you hit a wall your marble dislocates from your wizard and you must return to your home corner to start again.  The point of this game is not only to get the tokens but to memorise the Labyrinth underneath so that it gets easier to get to each token.  When you play initially you put about 18 wall tiles in the game, however there are 24 available and trust me when I say that having all 24 can be really hard sometimes!

The only aspect of this game I don't love is the fact that the rules state you can "pass" other wizards but don't really show you how to do that, as one or two times when we have done this both magnets get stuck to one wizard or one disconnects by accident.  This isn't ideal and I just wish there was a better way to pass each other.  The rules allow for passing and in a 4 player game this is entirely necessary. Maybe we just haven't worked out the finesse of it :-).


Review

This is definitely one of my son's new favourite games as it combines racing with magnets (two of his favourite things). It is easy to set up and play and very easy to teach. We have played with other five year old and they get on well with this game as well.  The hardest part of this game I think is the magnets as if we had any younger children around this game would just be unsafe - so only really play this game during young person nap time or when all your kids are of an age they don't put things in their mouth.

In general the quality of the game is lovely as well. The wizards are nice and hefty wooden pieces with felt bottoms so the slide really well. The maze is easy to put together and the magnets are exactly strong enough to work well through the board and also disconnect when they hit a wall.  We bought this game second hand and have had it about a year with no quality issues (and who knows how long the previous owners had it). 

You can easily find this game from any friendly local game store or from Coiled Spring Games. Its around £40 new but I think worth every penny because of how many times we have played it already!