I visited MCM Expo over the weekend, and they have an ever-growing board game presence there, so it was nice to be able to sit down with my friends and play some new things!
One of the games that we played was Magic Maze, a co-operative board game in which you control a party of four adventurers who have to steal their equipment from a store (the guy demoing it said this is because they have no money, apparently the rules read that it's because they have been stripped of all their weapons etc) and then get out of the store before you run out of time!
The game would, however, be far too easy if it was as simple as moving the pawns around the shop in whatever direction you want and being able to speak to the people that you're playing with, so of course that isn't how the game is played at all! You get to control a set amount of directions (we played three player, with one of us controlling left and teleporters;one of us controlling down, escalators and the pile of cards; and the other controlling right and up) and are not able to speak to the people you're playing with, instead using the big red piece to bang on the table to get the attention of the people that control the directions the pawns need to be moved in.
The game is actually fairly simple in premise - move yellow to yellow things, green to green things, purple to purple things and orange to orange things - but the execution of the game and the randomness (as well as the variety of scenarios) mean that you're unlikely to get bored any time soon, plus the game has a bunch of expansions you can use to spice up playing!
Is it worth my money?
As the base game is around £15-20 I'd say yes, especially if you're looking for a fun, quick game to break up board gaming nights!
