Das Dunkelspiel

The kid sets up for another game

This is the second of many tiny game reviews from the con. I looked at the photos of Nacht der Magier and decided that the kids (i.e. my kid and his two cousins and any kids which join my family in the future) would love it. Glow in the dark! Cool! So I ordered my copy from unhalfbricking and picked it up when we arrived. I unpacked it on the train on the way back to the hostel, and the kid, CyberKev and I played our first game in the dark of the hostel room.

Here's a quick summary of play: 61 pieces of varying sizes are placed on top of the game board which is therefore very crowded. Each player has a "wizard" piece which they push onto the board, potentially knocking other pieces off. If you succeed in pushing a cauldron piece matching your wizard into the depression in the centre of the board, you win, but if you knock a piece off the board, that's the end of your turn. The advantage of playing in the dark is that you can only see 12 cauldrons, 4 wizards, and the circle of light which is the target. Other than that, you're playing blind.

My first thought, as pieces of my new game got knocked off the board and scattered around the floor of the hostel room, was "I'm going to count these things and nobody sleeps till we find every last one of them!" It's a bit random, knocking over things you can't see, but finally someone has found another use for glow in the dark stuff! I can't remember who won that first game, it wasn't me anyway.

The kid played the game dozens of times at the con, so it was a good investment. He and the other kids took over a whole room and turned the lights off and played over and over, inventing "crazy rules" where you push your wizard fast and knock heaps of things off the board. I counted those pieces over and over. It's really a very enchanting game, and everyone will want to play it at least once.