Few children’s board games manage to be both genuinely entertaining and educational whilst remaining engaging for adults. The Magic Labyrinth, designed by Dirk Baumann and published by Drei Magier Spiele, is one of those rare titles. Winner of the prestigious Kinderspiel des Jahres awards in 2009, this deceptively simple game combines memory, strategy and a touch of magical whimsy.
At first glance, The Magic Labyrinth appears to be a colourful, fantasy-themed game aimed squarely at younger players. Wizards-in-training roam a maze collecting magical symbols in a competition designed to prove their magical mastery.
Magnetic Magic
The production quality of The Magic Labyrinth is excellent. The game includes a sturdy board, wooden wizard pawns, magnetic balls, removable maze walls and cardboard magic item tokens. The artwork is bright and inviting creating a sense of playful wonder without becoming overly complicated or distracting.
The most impressive component is the hidden labyrinth itself. Players construct a maze underneath the game board using plastic walls. Each wizard pawn has a magnetic ball attached underneath. If the ball encounters a hidden wall, it detaches and falls, causing the player to lose their turn and return to their previous position.
This simple mechanical design is brilliant. It creates a physical representation of memory and spatial awareness that feels almost magical each time that it happens. Even after many plays, the moment when a player moves their pawn only to hear the dreaded clatter of a falling ball remains entertaining. One negative I have is the small size of the metallic balls – this makes it very easy to misplace them, and with no spare balls available in the box, the loss of any would make further play impossible (at maximum player count of course).
Finders Keepers
The objective in The Magic Labyrinth is straightforward. The players move their wizard orthogonally around the board in search of magical items that appear randomly in different locations. A token draw from a cloth bag reveals which item will appear next and the first player to reach it gets to keep it, scoring 1 point. The first player to collect 5 points wins the game. What is great though is that this number of points can be predetermined at the start of the game. My 4-year-old daughter would tend to lose interest if the game became too long and so I would usually cap the victory points required at 3.
Each square on the top board, apart from the three that make up each corner, has a magical icon printed on it. These icons correspond to those on the magic tokens which are mixed in the drawstring bag. Movement is controlled by a die and so there is a fair amount of luck involved. Firstly, the luck of the roll of the dice, and secondly the luck involved in drawing the magical tokens from the bag. If a drawn token happens to fortuitously be very close to your wizard’s location, then points can be very easily accumulated – I did find that in the occasional game this could greatly favour one or other of the players. However, this is mitigated by the memory aspect of the game which involves remembering where the unseen barriers exist. Those players who could keep track of the placement of the walls generally tended to outplay those players that could not.
As the game progresses, players begin to build a mental map of the labyrinth. Routes that initially seemed impenetrable begin to open. Skilled players remember safe pathways and use them efficiently to reach objectives faster than their opponents.
Child’s Play
One of the greatest strengths of The Magic Labyrinth is its accessibility. The rules can easily be explained in just a few minutes, making it ideal for young children – my daughter at the age of 4 was able to pick it up very quickly. At the same time, the game encourages valuable cognitive skills. Children practice spatial awareness, memory retention, planning and problem solving, all whilst having fun.
Another advantage is the limited reading requirement. Since game play relies primarily on symbols and visual cues, younger players can participate fully regardless of reading ability. This makes the game suitable for a broad age range and diverse group of players. My daughter could easily teach and play this game with friends from her creche without an adult being involved (just be careful that they do not try to swallow those tiny magnetic balls, however.)
Children often have better memories than their adult counterparts and so this combination of luck and memorisation can often level the playing field and this meant that the outcome of games with my daughter were never a foregone conclusion.
A-maze-ing Replayability
The hidden walls beneath the board of The Magic Labyrinth can be rearranged before each game creating a new labyrinth configuration every time. This means that players cannot memorise a single solution and repeat it indefinitely. The number of walls included in the labyrinth can also be reduced or increased to accordingly change the difficulty of any given maze. The only rule about creating a labyrinth is that every labyrinth square must have at least one open wall that allows entry to and from it.
Once the under-board labyrinth is complete the top board is put into position and the board is spun around whilst chanting “"Labyrinth, labyrinth, turn around, walls disappear, ways will be found!" This is so that the person who creates the maze will not be able to memorise the created paths due to random board orientation. Then 2-4 pawns, depending on player count, are placed in each corner, carefully holding a ball-bearing under each so that when the pawn is moved the ball-bearing goes with it.
Games are relatively short; my plays of the game lasted around 20 minutes with a 3-point win requirement and 30 minutes with a 5-point win requirement. I only ever played it as a 2-player game but I would imagine that with 3 or 4 players the game length would remain the same as additional players would increase the frequency of token acquisition.
Magical Barriers
The most obvious strength of The Magic Labyrinth is in its originality. In a market crowded with conventional memory games, the hidden-wall mechanism feels genuinely innovative. Saying this, my daughter did lose interest in this game early on in favour of more theme-based games in our collection. The magical wizard theme, whilst present, does feel a bit pasted on and this game is, for the most part, an abstract one.
Also, because the game revolves around a single core mechanism, some players may quickly feel that they have experienced everything this game has to offer. Whilst the changing maze layout provides some variety, the fundamental gameplay remains consistent from session to session.
Final Verdict
The Magic Labyrinth is a remarkable example of elegant game design. Its hidden-maze mechanism is both innovative and intuitive. Every successful route to a magic token feels earned. One cannot help but hold their breath for almost every move in anticipation of hearing the dull clang of a falling metal ball. Its simplicity makes it exceedingly accessible to young children. However, I could not help but feel that that very same simplicity was what prevented my daughter and I from returning to this game time and again.
Final Rating
69/100
Artwork 3/5
Complexity 1/5
Replayability 1/5
Player interacition 3/5
Component quality 4/5
Likes
Unique hidden-wall mechanism is exceedingly elegant
Allows development of spatial awareness & memory retention in young children
Easy to teach and highly accessible to children
Dislikes
Fundamental gameplay too consistent makes replays feel “samey”
Pasted-on theme reduces games appeal
Random dice rolls and token draws reduce the effect of skill
