The Magic Labyrinth

So I picked this up “for Iris” at Craig Bowser’s recommendation. He put together a really nice list at BoardGameGeek (https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/190593/top-10-games-play-your-kids-ages-3-5) and then posted it to my Gamer Parents community (https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117292872497219259501). 

The Magic Labyrinth is an abstract memory game but it has a terrific mechanical twist: your pawn has a strong magnet inside it, and you attach a steel ball under the board that’ll follow your pawn as you slide it around the board. But under the board there’s a network of wooden walls (you can change them around to be anything you want). So as you slide your pawn around — the goal is to collect chits on the board — you run the risk of scraping the ball off, which sends you back to your corner.  The labyrinth sits on a fancy box insert that’s designed with slopes so your ball rolls back down to the nearest corner when it falls off.

The Magic Labyrinth won a ton of awards the year it came out, and even won the SdJ Kinderspiel award, which is A Big Deal in boardgames. Unfortunately it was the same year Dominion stormed onto the stage and won the year’s overall prize, so I think it kind of got buried. It also went out of print and was hard to get in the USofA. It’s back, but it’s also pretty spendy ($50) for what you get.

Anyway, cool game, it’s gonna be great to play with the kid.