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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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While I tend to be slow to add game apps to the iPad, I do try and keep an eye on what’s coming out. That’s because I am a nosy, curious kind of guy. I’m reluctant to be an early adapter so I also try and wait to find out how many bugs new releases have and how many patches they’re going to need.
That being said, when I saw that Ravensburger had released The Amazeing Labyrinth as an app, it caught my eye. I am going to wait until it’s been out in the world longer before I decide if it must be mine or not but I am quite happy to see such a classic game make it onto the ISO market.
I really shouldn’t be surprised, though. Labyrinth has been a major money maker for Ravensburger to over two decades and its sliding tile mechanism seems like a natural fit for a touch screen tablet. If the app is any good, this is just one more way for them to increase the profits.
Over the years, I have played the original Labyrinth, Master Labyrinth, Junior Labyrinth, the Labyrinth Card Game, and Labyrinth Treasure Hunt. (Yes, Ravensburger certainly has milked the franchise for all it is worth.) Out of all of them, the original Labyrinth is the one that I enjoyed the most and the one I’m most inclined to reach for to put on the table.
For those of you who have never played Labyrinth, the basic premise of the franchise is that your pawns are wandering through an ever-changing maze. The board is effectively a sliding-square puzzle made up of individual tiles. There is one loose tile which you slide into a column or row, pushing all the tiles one space along and having the last tile drop out to become the next loose tile.
And, yes, there is a ko rule. You cannot immediately undo the last player’s action.
In the base game, there are pre-printed symbols on the tiles. Those same symbols are on a deck of cards which is dealt out evenly to the players. You are trying to reach each symbol that was dealt to you, one at a time, and then return to your starting position before anyone does the same.
A friend of mine who doesn’t like kids refers to the Labyrinth franchise as a children’s game that is too good for children. Me, since I don’t hate children the way he does, despite the fact that I was a child once which should cast doubts upon the role, prefer to think of it as a children’s game that is legitimately challenging for adults.
Labyrinth has some nice toy factor, with the entire board being moving parts and the illustrations being as whimsical as a Harry Potter/Willy Wonka crossover. That being said, the game still requires a good sense of special relations and the ability to plan ahead. The concepts of the game are easy enough for most kids to grasp but the actual play of the game is complex enough that an adult isn’t going to snap their fingers and solve it, while crushing a child’s dreams like a professional linebacker playing against middle schoolers.
No, while there is a healthy dose of whimsy in the game, there is some meat on those bones. It doesn’t hurt that, after the board is set up, there isn’t anything random about how it changes. No, the ways that the path gets twisted is all in the hands of the players. Which is fine because that’s enough to keep you cursing and on your toes.
While the card game and treasure hunt game just used the themes of mazes without the actual clever slide action of the original game and Junior just used a smaller board, Master Labyrinth takes the shifting board concept and does something new. Instead of preprinted symbols, Master has numbered tokens for you to pick up and they need to be picked up in order. So no one can go for the ten until someone, anyone, gets the nine.
When I heard about that, I thought that sounded like a great idea. It seemed like the natural way to take Labyrinth to the next level. However, when the board hit the table, I found that the game was no David Bowie dance number. (You knew I had to make at least one Bowie reference) Instead, it was a game that took forever as we spent more time blocking each other than actually furthering the game.
The basic Labyrinth offered enough ways to mess with the other players while working on your secret goals. There was tension with the concern that you could be helping out someone else while still trying to make the best move for yourself. While Master does have secret goals, you still knew what the next token that be picked up would be and that made making crass moves too easy. The end result was a game that took longer than the fun.
So, Master Labyrinth is on the ‘to-go’ pile while Amazeing Labyrinth stays in the closet.
So, am I going to get an electronic version of the game that takes care of all the tedious set-up for me? (You may laugh at the thought but having the tablet do all the housework for you is an amazing convenience) Honestly, I don’t know. It will depend on what the long term reviews are like and if my fiancée and I agree we would play it often enough.
That said, I’m glad that it gave me a chance to remember what a good game Labyrinth is.
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