A group of fantasy adventurers have appeared at the center of a shopping mall. Their job is to run around and grab the item each one needs to embark on an adventure, and then find their way to the exit. It's a quirky theme, to be sure, but it does largely feel appropriate to the quirky gameplay.
Magic Maze is a tile laying game with a timer. Each tile is a 4x4 grid -- though not every square may be an actual, walkable path. For sure, there will be some number of exits off of that tile into... whatever tile is revealed next and placed alongside it. The game is a race to explore the "mall," turning over new tiles and revealing items and exits.
There are always four adventurers on the board, regardless of the number of players. Each one is looking for a particular item (think the four characters of the video game Gauntlet, and you're in the ballpark). Once the tile with their item is found and their piece is taken to exactly that spot, they must then find and move to the one exit space of their exact color.
Now here's were things start to get interesting. Each player in the game is assigned a card defining the one action (or two, depending on number of players) that they are allowed to take. For example: only one player can reveal a new tile and place it on the map; another player might be the only one allowed to move any piece south on the map, and another the only one who can move pieces up and down escalators. So players are forced to take turns and work together. Anyone can jump in at any time and do their thing, to any one of the four adventurer pieces on the ever-growing board.
But the big catch: no one is allowed to speak.
Once the timer begins, players are forbidden to talk to each other. They just have to reach in and move a piece if they think it's the right time and place to do so. They're allowed to glare intently at another player to "ask" them to do something. They're also allowed to grab one wooden pawn sitting on the table and smack it forcefully in front of somebody to get their attention. Otherwise, you're trying to work together as best you can under the extreme limitations.
You are allowed to stop the clock once or twice a round by moving one of the adventurers to a "pause" space on the board (once you've uncovered one). During the pause, players can speak, and plan what they hope to do next. But once the timer is restarted, it's back to silence.
The gameplay is pretty simple and the strategic implications minimal, obviously. Some people might even consider this more of a "puzzle" than a "game." But it is a fair amount of fun. The combination of the time pressure and the no-speaking rule make this very much the antithesis of most cooperative games. There aren't drawn-out discussions about what to do -- you just act on instinct, and if you make a mistake, you stare intently at the player with the power to undo it.
The game seemed very good for 4 players, with each participant having enough to do to be satisfied. I've also played with 5 and 6 players, and while that spread jobs enough that some people would sometimes have a little down time, it didn't seem to hurt the experience too much overall. The game does say it takes up to 8, though, and that many I'd be less sure about.
There is escalating difficulty, with more and more wrinkles thrown in on each playthrough as the players learn to negotiate the obstacles of the scenario before. We gotten a couple of layers deep the few times I've played, but I know there's more to it that we haven't yet tried, and I'd be curious to see just what that involves.
Super-short cooperative game that accommodates a wide range of players is a pretty narrow niche. This game has done it, and in a way that sets it well apart from other games. I was entertained. Because it's a bit shallow, I wouldn't say it became an instant favorite. Still, it's a game I can appreciate and recommend. I give Magic Maze a B+.
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