Magic Maze

You are a band of adventurers and because going out adventuring doesn't exactly turn the same profit as getting a regular job, you have, unsurprisingly, no money. So instead of trying to trade goblin heads for the weapons you so dearly need, you decide to just steal them and save all that time wasted bartering. What better place to rob all your supplies than a shopping centre?

Magic Maze is a cooperative game where you have to get four different pawns (representing an archer, fighter, dwarf and wizard) to different shops for the planned robbery and then running to the exits as quickly as possible for obvious reasons. But instead of each of the players controlling one of these pieces, you can all move them a different direction. But two things make this game exciting, one, you are up against the clock and two no one can talk. 

Although this game has an unassuming cover, it holds an absolute gem inside. The first thing you notice about it as you start playing is how intense it is, if your mind wanders of to something else for a moment, it will soon be drawn back in as someone bangs a big red pawn in-front of you which basically symbolises them shouting 'DO SOMETHING!' at you. This is quite different from the turn based games which you aren't always engaged when it is someone else's go and are only actually playing 50% of the time.

The difficulty level is also perfectly managed, when you start you can play the base levels which unlike most game the simple game is just hard enough to be a challenge to a new player (but not to hard at the same time) and as you get more experienced you can choose to do the harder levels which get increasingly complex. For example, each of your must have to go to different exits when they are running out or have to contend with security cameras or in one of the later scenarios your quest for the perfect heist spans two dimensions!

My one problem with this game is that with the bigger player counts some people are given identical action cards except for the fact that one person gets to do a special action as well.. This means that your role in the game is a lot less important ,when you are in a pair, as if you don't spot a vital move you need to make your partner will just do it for you. This means that you feel like you aren't impacting the game and that is a lot less fun. One way to get round this issue is to just split that special card up, meaning on player could do the movement and the other could do the special action making both roles important. The issue is partly resolved in the game by at some points swapping roles, so you wouldn't get a bad role for the whole game but still that is not a perfect solution.

Another thing that this game succeeds with enforcing silence onto the players is eliminating the possibility of someone telling everyone what to do because they can't talk. Which is sometimes a problem in co-operative games were one person basically plays the game and other people are left twiddling their thumbs.

Overall I would say that this game is an excellent option when you feel like working together for a change and is a fun experience which is good for all sorts of situations. I think I would give this a 8.5/10 and recommend it to basically everyone.