Sit Down, Magic Maze, Strategy Card Game, Ages 8+, 1-8 Players, 15+ Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

Magic Maze is a cooperative real-time game where everyone collectively controls four characters: a Barbarian, Mage, Elf, and a Dwarf. Once the sand timer is flipped, everyone will work simultaneously to move the characters around the mall, but no one can talk.

There are two different types of modules: helpers and challenges, which decrease or increase the difficulty. If you’re not careful the faster player of the two will sort of box out the other player (especially if the group tends to focus on moving one pawn at a time) and the other player will just sit around, kind of bored.Normally I’m against silent games, but I think that works to its advantage here, as it forces an almost-tactile form of wordless communication between the players. When a Hero Pawn is placed on a Vortex Space you can move the Hero Pawn on to any other Vortex Space of the same colour. The tension builds from that moment where you move the Barbarian North, but now the puzzle dictates he must go West before you can move him. I’m not going to get it back in a more intensified form when the game is over – the conversation that follows isn’t going to be meaningfully better than the conversation that preceded it. You’ll want to pass on this one if you don’t like real-time games or you try to avoid games that ratchet up the tension.

The first is that it’s frustrating rather than funny to be the source of everyone else’s impatience. As with most games involving a forced communication change, there’s a lot of opportunity (and incentive) to cheat. It’s a small issue, but when it’s only the filler game it needs to be able to fit that slot in the rucksack – at least in my opinion. It seems like I’m waiting for the one game that melts away my cold outer shell and replaces it with a warm sense of love and wonderment.The Portal player should especially be doing this early on, as they can always portal Purple back to the Start and move it to that first timer space. Magic Maze is a co-op game that effectively neutralises this by having everyone play in really time and not allowing them to talk! The problem ends up being the same thing that I mentioned in our review of Codenames and Codenames Pictures – I’m not a fan of games that replace conversation with intense silences, even if those silences are full of comedy potential. When all heroes are at their respective spaces they steal items, and then it’s time to make your escape without being caught.