Ravensburger’s family-friendly strategy game Labyrinth has always required a certain amount of deviousness. As you change the path for yourself, you may unintentionally block a path for your opponent. And as a player gets closer to winning, it becomes all the more important to try and stop them so you can claim victory. That’s why the new Disney Villains Labyrinth is such a perfect blend of a tried-and-true classic with your favorite Disney baddies.
For the unfamiliar, Labyrinth is a 4-player game for ages 7 and up. Players draw cards to reveal a destination on the board, but the path to get there is ever-changing. Tiles get placed on the board at random, with 16 tiles fixed in place. There is a bonus tile that changes hands and on each player’s turn, they may choose a row or column with arrows on it to move the path. The piece that falls off the board becomes the new bonus piece that goes to the next player. To add to the difficulty, a player is not allowed to simply move the board back to the way it was on their turn.
The story of Disney Villains Labyrinth is that Maleficent, Ursula, Scar, and Hades have become trapped in a wicked maze. Their objective is to traverse the passages and gather a team of henchmen to escape the labyrinth. A deck of 24 character cards gets shuffled and evenly distributed amongst the players. These decks remain face down, with players only looking at their top card and keeping it a secret. The other players shouldn’t know where you’re trying to go, otherwise it will be easier for them to try and stop you.
Adding to the fun, the four playable villains each have a special power that can be used once per game. Maleficent can transform into a dragon and fly to any space, Ursula can bind herself to another player by moving to their space, Scar can move a maze tile twice on a turn, and Hades can gather up all the face-down cards to be shuffled and redistributed.
As an example of how Disney Villains Labyrinth is played, let’s say that Ursula drew the card for Mr. Smee. None of the available paths connect in the photo above. But sliding the L-shaped piece up into the fourth column creates a way to reach her new henchman.
The game continues like this, with each player sliding a tile and then moving as much as they can towards their goal. Once a player has all of their cards face up, they must return back to their starting corner to escape the labyrinth. The rules are much less intricate than Disney Villainous while still giving you the wickedly wretched fun of trying to block other players from reaching their destination.
Disney Villains Labyrinth puts a fun Disney twist on a classic game. With beautiful artwork and characters spanning nearly every decade of Disney animation history, there’s something here for every Disney fan.
For younger players, a new version of Labyrinth Junior is now available themed to Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends. Aimed at ages 4 and up, the junior version of the game has a smaller board, which means there are less moves to make. There are also four double-sided tiles with optional cross-sections that make gameplay even easier. Like with Disney Villains Labyrinth, players pick a colored pawn and try to collect characters and vehicles that appear on chips.
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