Idle Remorse

Review: Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game

By On November 18, 2018 With 2 Comments

Review: Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game
Publisher: Golden
Year: 1991
Tagline: Travel the Path that Leads to the Career of Your Dreams

The cover showing a close up Barbie up front with three little Barbies on each side

HOW WE MET

This is another one that Bill picked up at an estate sale. This was a fabulous sale with dozens and dozens of board games that were cheap and in decent shape. This one is a bit on the musty side, but it’s also really, really pink. Sold. 

HOW IT PLAYS

Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game is a spin and move game where the object is to be the first player to reach the center of the game board, which means you have reached your career aspirations. 

Overview of game board showing three circles and Barbie's face in the middle
The three circles of Barbie

To begin play, each player chooses a pawn that equates to their career goal, like Pilot, Musician, Doctor, Fashion Designer, Ballerina or Actress. Each player also receives five CAREER DISKs matching their career, which they keep nearby. 

Career disks that show various images but text indicating which career they match
An underwhelming view of some CAREER DISKs

The game board has three career rings, and your goal is to get to the center. Each player spins the spinner and moves in any direction that number of spaces, with the goal of landing on a CAREER SPOTLIGHT SPACE which allows that player to place one of their CAREER DISKs in that space. 

The spinner showing 1-5 numbers
“We Girls Can Do Anything,” from 1-5. JK this is just the spinner

The toll to move from Ring 1 (the outer ring) to Ring 2 is three visible CAREER DISKs on the board. When you have three CAREER DISKs face up and are able to pass a bridge to the next ring then you can go there and collect all of your CAREER DISKs. Sounds easy, right?

But your terrible friends are also chasing their career dreams. And if someone lands on a CAREER SPOTLIGHT SPACE after you, their CAREER DISK goes on top of yours, meaning yours no longer counts towards your toll. You may need to land on the space again to lift yours to the top, or simply chase down less busy areas. 

Image of our play showing fashion designer and actress next to each other on board
One of the few images I took of our play

The toll to get from Ring 2 to Ring 3 is two CAREER DISKs, and you only need one CAREER DISK to get from Ring 3 to the middle, winning spot and realize your career dreams! Then you are the winner! 

HOW IT WENT

It went kind of like this, “Oh this will be a nice light game to play. Ha, look at my outfit! Wait, who the fuck went over my CAREER DISK? GODDAMMIT!” 

The game did have a couple of issues. For one thing, it was not uncommon for us to move the incorrect pawn. So having the blue background, big, blonde hair and goofy outfit was not enough for us to tell our pawns apart from the others. This type of confusion is not something that we typically experience, or I would assign blame to us. There needed to be more to differentiate the pawns. And this is just another reminder to think about how difficult it must be for those with color blindness or low vision to play games. Please keep this top of mind if you design a board game.

Another issue that I think is inherent to the game is the Runaway Leader problem. Once you break away from the pack, it becomes much simpler to move ahead in leaps and bounds. This wasn’t a problem in our particular game, in my opinion, since I was the one ahead and running away. But it is worth mentioning. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the “take that” mechanics in Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game. The box is just so pink and the pawn bases are just so sparkly, but there is nothing sweet and nice about clawing your way to your dream career. In the game you are stepping on the dreams of your friends to get a step up in the world. 

I would write this off as social commentary and leave it with a cheers to Mattel and the Barbie crew, but for the documentary The Toys That Made Us in the Barbie episode, and the section about how this idea (that “We Girls Can Do Anything”) was trending at the time. And how the one minute commercial even included an Astronaut Barbie whose outfit was not available for purchase. And how the commercial implied Gymnasts, Scientists and Street Dancers and the delivery in the version we played was Pilot, Musician, Doctor, Fashion Designer, Ballerina or Actress. 

courtesy of bmuz on youtube

So at the risk of showing you how crazy we are, there were two copies of the Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game at the estate sale, and Bill purchased both the 1986 and the 1991 versions. We resell a lot, and prices were good so I am really grateful for the chance to compare them. And it was interesting. Here are some major differences:

  • The branding is very different, and the Barbie images are drawings in 1986 and shifted to images of actual dolls in 1991. This is clear on the cover as well as the pawns and board. Winner: 1991 version. It was a nice touch to include actual dolls and their actual outfits on the pawns and cover
Barbie as a drawing and Barbie as a doll pawns
1986 v 1991 Barbie Doctor
1986 v 1991 Fashion Designer pawns
1986 v 1991 Fashion Designer pawns
  • The careers are different. As mentioned above, 1991 includes Pilot, Musician, Doctor, Fashion Designer, Ballerina or Actress. The 1986 version has pawns with fronts and backs, and includes Dancer, Astronaut, TV Reporter, Doctor, Actress or Fashion Designer. Winner: 1986. In my opinion the 1986 version mostly switches out 1991’s Musician and Pilot with 1986’s Astronaut and TV Reporter, and the latter comes out a tad ahead. All of these things require big dreams, big challenges and a lot of drive, but I felt like Astronaut and TV Reporter broke the mold just a little bit more. And in a little bit different direction
  • The components of the 1986 version are fine. The spinner looks similar, the pawns have already been discussed and the bases are just plain pink. The CAREER DISKS are just boring standard. Winner: 1991 version. The doll images were so much better than drawings, and the bases in the 1991 version were sparkly! 

I was pleasantly surprised by the play of Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game, so shame on me? Like many of the games we play, this one is a product of its time. And where it had the chance to push the envelope, instead it rode the trends of the time and even maybe backed off them in later versions. So like many of the games we play, this one is an attempt at merchandising more than anything else.

Barbie pilot pawn on the board
I am not above saying how pretty the game is

I think I would be more understanding if all of the game was unashamed marketing. If from the commercial I can buy that gymnast outfit, that dancing outfit, that astronaut outfit, that girls-dancing-together-in-an-attic outfit. I think what bothers me is the attempt to be something other than a marketing machine. I mean it’s possible the leaders of Barbie at this time have moving, anecdotal stories about girls that felt empowered by the dolls, the commercial or this game. That those just didn’t make the edit of what info I found. But it’s also possible that the only statistic they followed is how many Barbies a girl owned on average. Gross. I mean, I understand how marketing and bottom lines work, but then don’t put out this game that purports “We Girls Can Do Anything.” Can I buy that Astronaut outfit in my journey to become an Astronaut? No? Fuck you. Your commercial is failed marketing. 

And while I don’t think my self-confidence should be built by Barbie, by the Barbie commercial or Barbie dolls in general, Barbie is the one telling me “We Girls Can Do Anything.” If you enter that arena, show me the way. Be better. Do more. Make a difference to more than your bottom line. 

The 1986 cover showing a drawn Barbie vs a doll image
This is the 1986 version for comparison, not the 1991 version we played

So that’s it. We played the 1991 version, and I won. I ran away with it. I stepped on the faces of my friends while climbing my career ladder. How else was I going to become a Pilot? 

PLAY OR PASS

Pass. The gameplay was better than I had expected, but hopefully my ranting explained why I was left unsatisfied with the Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game. 

In terms of vintage games from the time, Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game brings a new, interesting objective and is not your typical roll and move game. However, in terms of what I felt Barbie could have accomplished with a board game in this vein, I was disappointed. 

Miscellaneous: 11/18 Happenings IRL

By On November 17, 2018 With 4 Comments

Happenings IRL

(My friend Stef at Happimess Media uses the phrasing Happenings IRL to talk about her In Real Life goings-on via Patreon, and I am stealing it. Sorry Stef!)

October, October, where have you gone? Wisconsin was treated to a nice autumn in October and Halloween’s weather couldn’t have been more perfect to walk around the quaint little town of East Troy, WI. There were hundreds of pumpkins carved by the town kids lining the square, the weather had a bite but my skeleton onesie kept me warm, we saw a light show, I clung to the back of Keri’s purse throughout a haunted house as we screamed, and we saw tons of friendly, familiar faces around town.

I neglected my blog and game reviews for several weeks. If you read this blog and enjoy it, fear not. I am back to it.

By way of explanation, here are a few things about me that have happened, do happen or are happening. 

Panic Mode!

First and foremost, I created a card game that has been in the works for a couple of years now (ugh, embarrassing). I launched a Kickstarter campaign in May of 2018 and failed in June of 2018. It made a lot of sense because my interested audience was not a good overlap with crowdfunding, and because once I hit “Launch” I basically was done. I am terrible at marketing and as much as friends and acquaintances tried to shove me in front of cameras, that’s not me and there is no part of me that wants to do that. 

A 3d rendering of the game used in the Kickstarter campaign. Pretty, right?

I decided to make the game anyway, and thus began a churn of thoughts around what kind of files are needed, will I need to redo everything? How many can I even sell? What is the price break at various manufacturing levels?

By making the game, connecting (albeit lightly) with Tabletop Kickstarter groups and sharing to a specific audience of 20,000 on LinkedIn I found some very helpful people, some cheerleaders and some people that said nice things in passing that kept me going. Many of the educational game people encouraged me to do Print-on-Demand. That means I decide how many to print and it costs a fortune, because it’s not at scale. But those games, by nature of being educational, can cost more to the end consumer too. In fact it is frequently a company with a budget making the purchase and not a person.

I don’t want my garage filled with my game for the rest of my life, but it just didn’t feel right to leave behind the regular person that might want the game (I know you’re out there!). Eventually I decided on printing 500 Print-on-Demand out of Madison WI and picking them up so I save all shipping costs, something only someone near Madison can brag about. These copies would still cost me a lot to make, though. I was setting myself up for basically no profit. I shared this update to my Kickstarter backers and ended up in a brief but interesting back and forth with one of my backers that shifted my thinking and I again determined to print with one of the major manufacturers meaning I needed a 1,000 print run minimum. It was time to show I believed in my own game as much as a bunch of people I met through it did.

Several years ago I used to work in Research and Development, and one of the things I learned very quickly in that position is that you have to create your own sense of urgency. You are making things that don’t exist and no one is waiting on, so you have to manufacture a sense of urgency to keep up with all the balls in the air. At least, I did. 

At any rate, I know how to create my own sense of urgency. I found a manufacturer, I got an updated quote from my old, before-paper-prices-went-up one, and I paid them the 50% down. And the game was afoot! 

So I, who am terrible at design and generally Adobe anything, had to create my deck of 250 cards in a ready-to-print format. I had to take my old box design that I paid someone to make, and translate it into a different sized template. 

I submitted files and got requested changes back. I got template changes. All the fun. The bonus was that I got to enjoy the, “That’s it! I’m DONE!” feeling multiple times. I am riding that high (although now it’s more a “I’m done?” feeling) even as I write this. The pre-production copy should be in my hands next week or so. 

If you work in IT, please check out Panic Mode. It’s a great team building exercise, it is a fun time and it offers an opportunity for discussion. I am proud of it, and I am done? with it. For now.

The sheep

Bill and I raise Icelandic sheep. We have been doing this about six years now. They honestly don’t take a lot of time, but they are part of our world, so they are always top of mind and if anything does happen it is extremely top of mind. 

We had a pretty easy year with a nice group of large lambs. We sell a lot of lambs in October, some in November and it’s usually done by then. We shear twice a year, including in October. Fall shearing is exhaustive because it includes not only our typical population but (for us) around 38 extra buggers. 

Fall shearing went well this year. We have not had any health issues with the sheep. We didn’t get a great hay crop and have to buy hay, which I do not like, but essentially all is well. However the sheep are worth mentioning as something requiring attention, particularly in the spring but also in the fall.

FUN FACT: We name the sheep each year based on a theme. Our favorite theme was the year we used the Dungeons and Dragons name generator, which happened to be an early year where we kept many lambs. Examples of beloved sheep still on the farm: Searos Ironbone, Marlove Gemviper, Gursys Killdeer (she’s my fave), Magcaryn Smilebeard, Kozyne Shieldskin, Thalquar Hingeblade and more! I can’t recommend that name generator enough. 

This is my Gursys as a new, fresh lamb. She’s 5 now!

The score

In September, Bill and I found ourselves in a very interesting situation that we will probably never stop talking about. 

Bill is a toy dealer, and he checks certain websites every so often to see what types of sales might be happening. He came running into my office one day waving his phone and showing me a sale that was happening about an hour from our house in a couple of days.

The person selling their stuff was a huge fan of a sci-fi television show that I am also a huge fan of (Bill is also a fan, but I will probably focus selfishly on my own fandom in this post). The sale had items from this show that had no business being in such close proximity to me, both physically and just in general really. It’s not an unknown show, but is BBC and fairly obscure here in the states (it is not Doctor Who, despite below references to those characters; there was a lot of sci-fi stuff there). For this huge collection to be nearby was bizarre. 

The sale started on a Thursday and we were always going to go. It was like being invited into a museum with on screen props and costumes from your favorite television show, but you can BUY THEM. I had already made a purchase over the phone earlier for some random item (it was a mechanoid head) that I had never assumed was on screen but was happy to have, so we were going to pick up this item and I planned to spend time with, touch and admire all of the other items out of my price range.

So we arrive and I head straight to the basement, where the best items always are. And it was jaw-dropping amazing. How often are we invited so anonymously into a world we would never otherwise cross? I was met by a full-sized Tardis, Dalek and Cyberman as soon as I entered the basement. I was surrounded by mannequins. I passed a full size, very familiar spacesuit into a bedroom and turned away from an ancient, ornately carved, wooden bed that commanded attention into a closet and was overcome with flashbacks from a TV show I have watched and loved since high school because the iconic costumes were right in front of me. It was unreal.

Anyway, the details here are not important to the story. Suffice it to say that Bill and I worked with the (friendly, clever, interesting) seller to purchase enough items at this sale that we rented a U-Haul the following day and packed and moved all day. We said nothing to John and Keri, just, “Will you help us unload this U-Haul?” Our group chat is still titled “Mannequinsanity.” John is very good at group chat titles.

This event has impacted our lives in a number of interesting ways. It sounds like a brief event but has a tail to it. It has led us into worlds that we would not otherwise enter and meet people with passions that we would never otherwise have met. We are learning a lot, meeting a lot of fun people, and I still can’t believe any of it. We are finishing a portion of our basement to give us a place for Bill to work (that has long been a plan) but also a place to store some of the items we purchased. We were on some weird kind of natural high that I think took me at least a week to start to come down from, and I can still catch the tail of it sometimes. It’s strange.

FUN FACT: Another one of my favorite television shows in this world is MTV’s The Challenge. I love it, and when it’s Wednesday it means I am watching The Challenge (I don’t watch real-time) after work. In September I fell a full five days behind. By October I had fallen a full week behind and had the amazing luxury of watching two episodes in a row. This speaks to my circumstances only – the show remains incredible – but it was perhaps the most clock-like and unsettling way I had to track how off I became in my routine around this time. 

Bill called the sale incident a folie a deux as soon as it happened. I think that’s pretty accurate. Me being my creepy self just suggested that we died in a crash on the way to the sale and the rest has been heaven. 

I was so worried about my garage being filled with my game that no one wants, and here it is full of fleece, mannequins and full-sized robots.

Yes, that’s where I park my car

NANOWRIMO

For the unfamiliar, Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month, and I love it. It takes place every November. I have participated a number of times. I have only written one thing (I lovingly call it my blob) that feels like it pokes me on the shoulder like, “Hey, I’m a thing. Finish me.” My other nano’s just have nice nuggets inside of them. Nanowrimo is the best.

Truth be told, this Nanowrimo piece is one of the drivers behind my sense of urgency to finish Panic Mode. It demands a particular head space, and I can’t do both at the same time. So I need to be done with one to focus on the other. 

And have I mentioned yet that it’s November? Again. It’s November again. 

I tried to do a short Nanowrimo in September and even pulled in some friends. I personally was semi-successful, because I wrote some of my favorite scenes, but also the whole weird sale thing happened. I had to digest that for so long, seriously. It was weird. But I did write some great stuff in September which told me I can plug back into something I originally started to write in 2015. And that’s what I needed to know. 

My next goal is to self-publish this novel. It is very dark, very dense and very manic. But I kind of like it, and maybe I can make it even better. I will still suffer from my own marketing woes, but I will feel so great when it’s just out there and done.

Stay tuned

I have some great games waiting in the wings, all played but in various states of review. We’ve got The Mask, Dick Tracy, Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game, Clay to Win, Monster Mash, Whose Baby is this Anyway?, Heart-throb, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Topple, Wildcraft, Pac-Man, Personal Preference, The Joke Game, Perfect Match and at least that many more. 

If you read the blog, thank you for your patience. I was just waiting for my “I’m done?” to become “I’m done!” Because that’s a big deal. I’m not there yet, but I am so, very, close. 

How was your October? 

Review: Spy vs. Spy

By On November 11, 2018 With No Comments

Review: Spy vs Spy 
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Year: 1986
Tagline: AN EXPLOSIVE TUNNEL-BUILDING GAME OF RISK AND RIVALRY!

Cover showing black spy and white spy with bomb between them

HOW WE MET

I found Spy vs. Spy at an Estate Sale in late summer of 2017. We were nowhere near the estate sale, but the photos indicated enough game interest for us to hop right over. We got there at the end of Day 1, which is right before 50% off day, but there was still a ton of stuff left. Bill found some crazy cheap vinyl and I found Spy vs. Spy and Clue Master Detective, for $5 each. While $5 is more than I like to pay for games I typically buy, these were a couple of rare birds and their condition was immaculate. 

HOW IT PLAYS

Spy vs. Spy is a tile placement, pick up and deliver game. The object of the game is to bring home a certain number of bombs based on the number of players. For our 4-player game this was four bombs. Then you win!

The board set up for play with bombs in spaces in the middle and spies in each corner
Spies in their corners, bombs in their places, set up for play

Players start the game on their respective manholes with four tiles, a spy pawn and a rack matching the color of their pawn. Tiles are mostly different tunnels but some are spies, without tunnels. You play TUNNEL TILEs to move around the board. You play spies on top of TUNNEL TILEs to block a tunnel, but there are some rules: white spies can only be played on TUNNEL TILEs with black spies, and vice versa. Grey spies can be played on either. 

Example tiles including white spy, black spy, grey spy and three tunnel tiles
Here is an example of some tiles, including a spy of each color

Your basic turn goes: 

  • Move your pawn to another tunnel tile (this assumes there is one in front of you already from a previous turn – if you can’t move, you can’t move)
  • Roll the BOMB DIE if relevant
  • Draw a tile and play one of your tiles
  • Read the message under your bomb if you get a bomb home

Spies can not be played on top of another spy tile, under a bomb, under a pawn, on a manhole or on an already repaired tile. This means the tile pile in a given space can only get up to 3 (one tunnel, one spy / block and one tunnel / unblock), and no larger. 

TUNNEL TILEs can only be played in legal ways, so you can’t place one if it leaves a tunnel to nowhere, even if it’s the only option. But the tunnels are used to move your pawn forward through the mess and try to capture bombs. 

My pawn with a bomb
Like me, here. I have ze bomb

One thing you have going for you is that you can move as far as possible without turning a corner along a certain tunnel and still only make one movement. This becomes important later in the game, when you need to move quickly to try and capture bombs. 

If you do reach a bomb, congratulations! You are partially there. The first thing you do is roll the BOMB DIE. This die has many blank sides and one side indicating an explosion. If you roll a blank you are good for now, and your turn ends. If you roll the explosion then you are moved back to your manhole and leave the bomb behind. 

You have to make this same roll if you start your turn in the same space as a bomb. So if you find a bomb, great, but you have to pass the roll until the point you get the bomb home. That could be several turns, so don’t get too comfy. And you can only carry one bomb at a time, so don’t try to get all creative. 

The die showing explosion on one of the six sides
This fucking thing

Instead of taking a regular turn you can choose to ditch your tiles. You can choose from one to four tiles to discard and draw new tiles. But this does replace any normal play during your turn. 

If you manage to roll very well and get a bomb home then you get to read the bottom of it! Bombs offer different benefits, from taking another turn to drawing another tile. And if you get the number of bombs needed home, you win!

Bomb bottoms that include "Draw and play," "Remove a tile" and "move a bomb"
Example bomb benefits

HOW IT WENT

Since we play a lot of vintage games, we end up playing a lot of electronic games and a LOT of roll and move. I appreciated that Spy vs. Spy brought something a little different to the table with tile laying. However, the underlying path to victory is the same as most vintage games – it is luck. 

The luck of the draw is important. Do you have the right cards to tunnel to bombs efficiently? Do you have the right cards to unblock your blocked tunnels? The roll of the die is very important. Can you grab the bomb and drag it all the way back to your manhole without rolling the explosion? The bad luck of your opponents is important. Can you get to bombs before your opponents? The bottom of the bombs can be nice perks or just kind of nothing. Were you lucky enough to pick a good one?

Overview showing some tiles laid
Our play in action

I think the translation of Spy vs. Spy to the game was pretty well done. There is plenty of “take that” going on, and instances where the white spy blocks the black spy and vice versa. Even though the pawns show you as either black or white spies, during play you do not necessarily identify strongly with one color or the other; tunnel blocks are based on the tunnel and not on your pawn. And your fellow color spy will likely block you just as enthusiastically as your opposite color spy. 

The most memorable part of our play was that Bill has probably never rolled so poorly. He rolled the explosion a lot. Almost every time. He didn’t stand a chance. 

The tray with tiles in front of the board
The tray in front of the board

One warning that I would give you is not to use your block cards too early in the game. Once tunnels are joined and established, spies can really buzz around the board and it might be more critical for you to block your foes than it was early on. It might even be valuable to block your own paths so that you can fix the block with a more advantageous tile. 

Our play went overly long and became extremely tedious. The beauty of this problem with this particular game is that it has a simple fix: collect fewer bombs than indicated in the instructions. The game would be much more enjoyable, maybe even tense, if we were only collecting two bombs. Three might be okay too. Four did not work well for us. 

But I won, so.. 

Overview of game board showing my red pawn in corner with four bombs
I have ze victory but it was close. And that is John’s pawn in the background, no longer even vertical

PLAY OR PASS

Play, but with the caveat mentioned above that you should adjust the rules to collect fewer bombs than indicated, at least for four players. Apart from gameplay dragging with more players, the game is lovely and a fun departure from typical vintage roll and move. 

Miscellaneous: The Ruler of Risk

By On October 9, 2018 With 1 Comment

I am finishing up the files for my card game, and my blog is suffering! I probably will not have another review until the weekend, so in the meantime please enjoy this crazy amazing crown.

I thrift a lot, as you know, and earlier this year we picked up an old copy of Risk. It had this crown in it documenting the “Ruler of Risk” going back to September 1974. I absolutely love it, and it remains on that mannequin head even now.

We are going to do something similar for Casino Yahtzee. I’ll be sure to share that monstrosity once it’s ready.

A paper crown saying "Ruler of Risk" in crayon

Names listed on the crown starting in 1974 including King Billy S and Queen Nancy H

More names from 1980-1986 including Queen Rickey the Puma-hearted

Signing off,
Queen Jen the puma-hearted

Review: Fantasy Forest

By On September 27, 2018 With 2 Comments

Review: Fantasy Forest
Publisher: TSR
Year: 1980
Tagline: A Child’s First Fantasy Adventure

Children walking along a path in a forest with a wizard on the left

how we met

I found Fantasy Forest at a thrift shop where we often get lucky, but they also tend to price a lot of board games crazy high – so it’s a crap shoot. Bill spotted Fantasy Forest with one of the pawns sticking out through a hole in the top of the box, and the price was only $1.99. Sold.

TSR was based out of Lake Geneva, WI, very near where I live. I feel like we see more TSR items around here as a result, but that is purely anecdotal and based on no facts. But we have found a number of old D&D copies, and even though it’s a children’s game I considered Fantasy Forest a great find. Especially when I got it home and it’s complete.

how it plays

In Fantasy Forest, players play cards from their hands to move ahead on the board trying to make their way to Morley’s castle. The first play to the castle wins!

The board shows a mess of a track and children running around and monsters chasing them

The big, colorful board

Each player starts the game with 3 cards in hand. The rest are in the deck to draw. The cards consist of different monsters that all correspond to numbers. On their turn, a player draws one card and chooses one of the cards from their hand to play and move that number of spaces.

A hand showing a monster worth 3, a monster worth 2 and a mummy worth 5

Sadly, this is the only photo I have of our play

Instead of moving this way, a player can choose to DUEL another player. Each player then chooses a card from their hand to play, and if the player that initiated the DUEL wins they move to the space in front of the challenged player. If they lose, no harm done and end of turn.

FUN FACT: When a game allows a player to get into the lead and there is not much anyone can do, it is called the “Runaway Leader” problem. When a game tries to address this, it is often called a “Catch-up” mechanic. The DUEL in Fantasy Forest is an example of a “Catch-up” mechanic. You are never hopelessly behind, no matter where you are on the board.

Monster card examples

This is a sampling of monsters. They are adorbs

If a player lands on, passes or ends on a spot with a shortcut and happens to have the card matching that space, they may pay the card to take the shortcut and continue moving for however many spaces they had left; BUT the card that paid the shortcut just buys the shortcut and does not also allow numbered movement. Shortcuts can be taken if a player begins, passes through or ends at the space on their turn, provided they have the correct card to pay the toll.

Starting space has a pink star with pink spaces leading across a bridge to a new landing space

Example shortcut that you can cross if you can pay the toll

If a player lands on a red space, they are AMBUSHed. This player chooses a card from their hand to play face up, then draws the top card from the deck face up. If they win the AMBUSH by having played an equal or higher number card, they get to move ahead that number of spaces. But if they lost, they move backwards the number of spaces of the card drawn.

When playing an extra card on their turn, like in an AMBUSH or after being challenged to a DUEL, players should also draw a card at the end of turn. Players should always have three cards in hand. Which I love because it is so simple.

Players can share a space. But if you end your turn on the same space as another player then you take that player’s three cards into your own hand, then return any three cards of your choice back to that player.

Play continues until one lucky elf finds themselves at Morley’s castle and is the winner!

Morley the wizard

This is what the end looks like

NOTE: There are versions of Fantasy Forest that also include Hero Cards and accompanying figures. From what I can tell they are special powers that change hands. This is not part of the original version and not part of our copy.

how it went

For a clearly marketed children’s game, I think Fantasy Forest has a lot to offer. Play is simple but cut-throat. Players can make choices to save high cards for DUELs or the occasional AMBUSH, or they can try to move as far as possible each turn. If they get too far behind, they have very practical options to catch up. And although it is not devastating, there are still punishments for another player landing on your space.

This actually plays a bit like Goosebumps: The Board Game. Except when I asked Keri about Fantasy Forest a few weeks after our play she said, “Is that the one where you go up the guy’s robe?” And it’s difficult to argue with that description. I didn’t realize it until writing this review and looking closer at BGG photos, but this part of the board changed in the later version.

Our play went okay, except I am pretty sure Bill was lucky enough to draw all the Dragons. A lot of us had good forward momentum. We did see a few DUELs. We saw an AMBUSH or four. We shared spaces and sent back the lowest cards. Two players even took shortcuts! We did it all.

Pawns at start

Our pawns at the beginning. So young, so happy

Fantasy Forest felt less tense than Goosebumps: The Board Game, which is probably fitting. The highs were not quite as high, but the lows were not nearly as low. It was a nice break from roll and move, and the cards really do introduce more strategy into play. One of the interesting parts of the game is wondering whether the elf children or the monsters are more horrific.

A young girl making a teasing face at a giant

Yeah, tease the big guy

A goblin chasing a smiling girl

So much teasing fun

More chasing and a girl sticking her tongue out at a goblin

If you are having Lord of the Rings flashbacks by now, that’s normal

Child sticking tongue out with dragon overhead

Even at the foot of the dragon it’s hands on knees, sticking tongue out

Keri was transparent the entire game that she had no intention of being the first to Morley. But there was rarely big margins of space between any of us, so it didn’t matter much. Bill was fairly consistently in front, even though we would DUEL him and jump ahead throughout play.

In the end Bill was the first to Morley and won!

play or pass

Pass. This is a “Child’s First Fantasy Adventure.” It’s not for you. But if you say you are buying it for your kids I will believe you. And truly, it introduces decisions and acceptance and luck and catching up. If you are looking to make your young child a gamer, this is not a bad start.

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