After coming in to class, I went to my usual sit and waited for the class to start. Once the class had started, the TA told us that Prof. Morgan would not be coming in, and that we can just start picking our groups or the games that we want to play and get right on it. Since I did not have any board games (I do not own one), I started looking around the room to see which person has one. Surprisingly enough quite a few people had actually brought in their favorite board games, and it just so happens that the guy sitting next to me had brought one as well. He started asking if anybody wanted to play and the people in front of our table said yes, and so I joined in as well.
After fixing the chairs and settling down, we started introducing ourselves. The one who brought the board game and was asking around was Joseph. The people in front of our table were Joanne and Elton. After introductions, Joseph started opening and setting up the board game.
Players: Joanne, Elton, Joseph, Kyle
Set Up:
The game contained the following:
- A board
- Four different character pieces
- A deck of cards
- A stack of board tile pieces (1 extra piece to move the maze)
- Rules/Instruction booklet
The board itself was not fully filled. It had certain areas where tiles were fixed and not movable, and the rest were empty spaces (for the stack of board tiles). Each corner of the board contained a colored circle which represents the color of the character/player. The characters were all mages: 1 female, 3 males. Each character had a different color (blue, red, yellow, green). The deck of cards had pictures of different items/symbols that were similar to the items/symbols on the board and the tiles.
Image by Kevin Outlaw on his blog (https://alwaysboardneverboring.blogspot.com/)
After taking out the contents of the box, we started picking our characters.
Players and their respective characters:
- Joanne – Blue Mage
- Elton – Green Mage (Gandalf)
- Joseph – Yellow Mage (Female Mage)
- Kyle – Red Mage
Since Joanne, Elton, and I did not know the instructions on how to play the game at the time, Joseph told us to pick up the tiles and put it randomly on the board. After doing so, he started shuffling the deck of cards and explained to us that each player must have 6 cards.
After dealing the stack of cards to each player, Joseph then explained the instructions and how to win the game.
Objective: To gather/reach all the items on the board that corresponds to the players cards.
Every turn, the player must move the maze using the extra tile piece. Players can only move/push the tile where there is a yellow arrow on it (meaning the sides only). The other spaces that do not have the yellow arrow do not move. By moving the tiles, this helps the player move around the maze or block another players path. After moving the tile, the player has the choice of either to move around the maze, or to just stay in place.
The stack of cards that is dealt to each player must be faced down at all times. For every player, the player must look at the top of the card stack (without showing it to other players) and he/she must move to that items tile in order to obtain it. After obtaining an item, the player has to flip the top card and put it face down on a separate stack so that every player can see it. This process continues until the player has flipped all cards and obtained all 6 items.
Finally, after obtaining all items, the player must return to their corresponding home(corner) tile to win. Whoever does this first wins the game.
Once the instructions were explained, we decided on who was going to go first. The youngest person in the group has go to first, and since Joanne was the youngest, she went first. After her turn, we decided that we would just do clockwise for turns. The sequence became Joanne->Elton->Joseph->Me.
The instructions were confusing at first, but after a few turns Joanne, Elton, and I seemed to have grasped it already. After a few turns, Joseph managed to obtain all of his items and also managed to return back to his home tile. Joseph was the winner, and I came in second after a few turns.
We played two rounds. Sadly, I lost both games (and I accidentally helped Joanne win). One round of the game took us about 45 minutes to finish. It was hard to think about every possible move, not to mention we also had to think about how we’re going to disrupt other players movement. Overall, the game wasn’t too bad. It required a lot of thinking but it was still a fun game. Labyrinth is a fantastic competitive game with a nice theme and I’ll definitely play it again.
A New Player Has Arrived 