Master Labyrinth

 Video review here! https://youtu.be/C8KfnX66oXM

Master Labyrinth from Ravensburger from 1991, this game is a whole heap of fun! Wizards, magic wands, spells, potions and a constantly shifting and changing board!

The box for the game goes simplistic with the lid, and even as a child, I realised that this was the advance version of this game, this was the one for the big kids! Still, I love the art on the front, each of these wizards is showing how well the game is going for them. I love how the red wizard in the foreground is giving a sneaky wink to the players. The chap in the middle certainly seems amused by the antics, much to the annoyance of the wizard on the left, this nicely parodies how you as players will end up reacting as you play.



The back of the box shows quite a fair bit of information, obviously it has the blurb to lure potential buyers and players in. “You’ve got the magic formula that will make you the Master Magician. But where can you get the rare ingredients you need? Off you go into the labyrinth. But be careful: the winding corridors shift constantly, and it’s easy to get lost!” The back of the box also gives a brief overview of the game rules as well as the contents and a particular nice inclusion, the duration of an average game.

Setting up the game can take a couple of minutes but once assembled, visually looks impressive. The main board has tile pieces fixed in place, they act as runners for the rest of the tile pieces to move between. The players lay the tiles in place on the board. The instructions say to lay the board tiles face up, but wily veterans of the game might “accidentally-on-purpose” lay out a nice snaking corridor to make things easy for them when they start. Laying the tiles face down and then flipping them over prevents this from happening, it takes a few minutes longer, but keeps it fair and random. Next, you take the twenty-one ingredient tokens and lay them face down on the board in this pattern shown in the instructions, then flip them over, again keeping the spread of them random and fair. Each player is dealt one secret formula card and three magic wands. The secret formula cards show three ingredients, and each card is different, no two cards have the same combination. Cards will invariably contain ingredients that both you and your opponents will be after. 




Before we move onto the rules and how to play, I just want to praise the art of the game board and pieces. Wonderful watercolour painted pieces, fantastically themed. The board has this intriguing keltic rune pattern to the centre of it that’s never seen whilst playing, it’s always covered with tiles, intact, the whole main board is never seen.

 They could’ve left this as a blank piece of card with the tiles fixed on but the fact they went to the effort to paint and design this isn’t ignored by me. The tile pieces are equally impressive for their dedication, every single one is different. I’ve laid them out and looked at them and although there’s only three different types, straight corridor, corner and T-junction, the books, potions and brick-a-brack around the shelves are all totally different. The game manufacturers could've gone the quick, cheap and easy route with having one design and print it multiple times but they didn’t, this shows quality, hats off to Ravensburger for this.



The instruction manual is also wonderfully illustrated, it’s just a pity it’s in black and white. “There are twenty-one magic items in the labyrinth, but they can only be picked up in numerical order. The wizard who gets to item number one first may keep it, then all the wizards race for number two”.  An interesting addition to the instruction manual is a brief historical overview of each of the ingredients, these are based in real life history and the supposed magical properties of each item. What attention to detail, again, Ravensburger getting a full 10/10 for theming, this absolutely wasn’t needed but just adds that little something special. Number fifteen, “If a weasel spit at you, you might break in two or go blind, but bones of a white weasel could be used to make you invisible” Wow, I never knew that, I’m staying clear of weasels from now!  Four, “ Oil from black slugs was used to heal wounds”… I think i’ll stick with a bandage. I will say number nineteen always looked like an orang-utan under a palm tree, apparently it’s supposed to be a mandrake. Players make their way around the board collecting the ingredient tokens in numerical order but each player is secretly wanting to get the ingredients on their card. Moving the player pieces doesn’t require a dice roll, in fact there’s no dice with this game at all, if the corridors are open for you to travel from one side of the board to the other, you can!

Now onto what makes this game really special, the moving labyrinth. As mentioned before, there was one extra game tile and this is important for the movement of the labyrinth. At the start of each turn, you push the free tile into the side of the game board, the points where you can push are indicated by these little while arrows, handy to have those as there’s always one player who tries to push against the tiles fixed to the board. Pushing the free tile in will cause that row of tiles to move, the board to change and a tile to pop out of the other side. You’re then free to move your piece if you’re able to and pick up ingredient number one. As the game progresses the board will shift dramatically from how it started out, and you’ll need to think carefully about your move, this game requires a lot of forward thinking. Visioning how the board will look once you move a row of tiles is a key component to winning, and you won’t always see the best move you can make until it’s too late. Strategy is key to this game, you need to keep corridors open to you, it’s easy to get walled in and stuck by your opponents, a tactical move to stop you from getting ingredient tokens. Before taking your turn, it’s wise to think whether you can get to the next token or whether it’d be sensible to try to block your opponents’ path toward it. Yes, it’s one of these types of games where you can really throw a spanner in the works for other players, I particularly love games where you can be vindictive and sly towards opponents.

 There are number of additional rules to moving the labyrinth, the most important is that you can’t immediately reverse the previous players move, which just aids with the whole backstabbing side of the game. Another important rule, say for example your play piece is on the edge of the board, and pushing a tile in causes the tile your positioned on to come out of the board, what happens? Well, your piece goes to the other side of the board. The same thing can happen with the ingredient tokens. This again plays massively into the strategy of the game. The token you need to collect is all the way on the other side of the board, with this move, you can hop right over there and collect it or likewise bring the token to you. Such moves can also help you out if the other players have walled you in, it’s a neat mechanic and in the focus of trying to create corridors to move to tokens is one that can be quite easily over looked. Moving doesn’t just restrict you to picking up the one ingredient token, if you’re clever enough to create a corridor that allows you to pick up multiple tokens you can do, provided they’re picked up in order. It’s enjoyable setting up a play that opens up one of these scenarios to you. 

Mentioned before, each player gets three magic wands, you can use these at any time and they give the player another turn. You can’t chain these up so you could have, say, four turns, but having the option at any time to take another turn to move the labyrinth to your advantage is a great addition and requires careful thinking and planning as when to best use them. 

The game progresses until all the ingredient tokens are collected, then the game ends. One thing I’ve always found unusual with this game is that there’s twenty-one ingredient tokens… but the twenty-first is numbered twenty-five. What’s the reasoning behind this? The instructions say that this gives the player bonus points. I can’t say that this is much of a bonus, the last token is twenty, this one is twenty-five, five points isn’t a staggering windfall of points. Who is winner is determined by counting up the tokens. One is worth one point, two is worth two and so on. Toward the end of the game, everyone is racing to get those high point ingredients. What about the ingredient cards? Well, for every ingredient you pick up that’s on your card you’re awarded an additional twenty points so with the potential of getting an additional sixty points, going for your ingredients is important. The winner is the player with the most points.

This is the Master set, there’s the standard Labyrinth game which doesn’t have the ingredient tokens, the ingredients are  in place printed on tile pieces, players are dealt three ingredient cards they place face down and they race to get to those tiles first. It’s a simpler version, and personally, I prefer the Master set though I can see the standard version being easier for younger children. Master Labyrinth is still being produced, but it has again been refined since this iteration. The 2007 edition has the addition of a Labyrinth guardian and a dragon, that you have to battle with in order to win your ingredient tokens. I’ve not played this version but I’m interested to see how it works.

Here’s a game that I’d forgotten about before going up into my attic and it bowled me over how enjoyable it is still. This is one that’s staying down from the attic I’ve enjoyed it so much. It’s quick to learn how to play and incredibly strategic, you can be trapped one moment and with one move the whole board opens up to you. Blocking routes off to your opponents is always satisfying and seeing moves they couldn’t see even more so. Everything about this game exudes quality, Ravensburger clearly took the time with refining and presenting this. I honestly can’t fault this game at all, it’s wonderful, if you have a copy, dust it off and give it a play, if you don't I urge you to get one, you really won’t regret it. Thanks for watching, I’ll talk to you soon.