My trip to International Spiel Tage 2024, also known as Speiltag 2024 or simply Essen, in October was incredibly productive. I had the opportunity to explore a wide range of new heavy and mid-complexity EURO games, discover a few intriguing Wargames, and even pick up some children-friendly titles. The variety and choices were overwhelming, but I was thrilled to acquire The Adventures of Robin Hood!

Bringing a title which our family can later on play together slowly becomes a mandatory point on my Essen trips. This year my search initially did not yield a success but during the visit to Uwe & Wolfgang at Sound of Drums stand I met Marc von Martial. Thanks to his recommendation and inspiration I decided to start looking for the Robin Hood game – and I am so glad I managed to get it!

To say that we had a blast with that great title would be an understatement. This cooperative game leads us through the whole story of the famous Robin Hood, from his come back from Holy Land to final face-off with Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John. It took us eight sessions – which we played in two months! – to complete the adventure. That says something about the commitment and fun we all together had with this title!

Let us talk now a little bit more about the game details, present its great component, say couple of words about game play and conclude with the set of impressions that game left us with. Enjoy!

The game

In England in 1193, the county of Nottinghamshire suffers under the yoke of evil Prince John and his henchmen. Can Robin Hood and his companions escape the sheriff’s guards and complete their adventures successfully?

In The Adventures of Robin Hood, players take on the role of Robin Hood and his companions, with the action taking place on a living game board with no set paths. The board changes over the course of each adventure, and the movement of the characters is handled via an innovative mechanism that uses different length wooden character pieces.

Various actions and secrets are integrated into the game levels and are revealed only in the course of the story. The game board “remembers” what players have already explored or found, and thanks to the special materials, the entire game can be set up and dismantled quickly. On top of this, the whole story of Robin Hood is told via a high-quality hardcover book, and depending on the decisions the players make, the story changes.

The gameplay

After playing the game eight times we definitely can tell you Guys a lot about the mechanics, what we liked about them and maybe elements which not entirely were great (good there was only a few of them). The game well accommodates 3-4 players, is suitable for kids (I played with Natan and Kuba, respectively 11 and 9 years old) and is telling intriguing story with various paths to choose from. However, picture being worth thousand words, let me explain the details while presenting the photos of the game taken during our sessions.

PS. You can click on each of the images to enlarge to full screen in new window.

The first thing which we immediately noticed is the astonishingly beautiful map of the game. When you look from a bit distance you simply have a feeling like looking at 3D printed castle and neighboring forest! What is important, the map “lives” as you constantly open / flip / remove / add something to / from it.
The mechanic of movement is very clever. You have your character pawn (above Green Robin Hood played by Kuba) and three movement / dash figures. Two of them are shorter , one is longer. It shows maximum reach of the move – and if you do not use the longest, you rest and add a special white cube to the bag from which you draw when fighting or resolving various actions.
During the game (spoiler!) you will of course need to find a space to hide yourselves and the Merry Men. Above Robin Hood (Kuba), Little John (Natan) and Will Scarlet (me) in the outlaws base of operations.
But the evil Guy of Gisborne, hired by the notorious Sheriff, will try to catch you and your companions! Still, with some clever improvisation, using a large haystack, you can avoid even such a formidable opponent!
But usually game will present you with much more complicated tasks, to which you will need find a solution – oftentimes via trial and error approach. Like what to do to save poor Little John from the gallows, heavily guarder by the henchmen… (as visible above)
All of this under pressure of time – precious hourglasses will disappear one by one once the turns are done; they will also refresh defeated soldiers or push forward some events. And when they are gone, we will lose…

The impressions

Playing The Adventures of Robin Hood was definitely a great time spent with family. Let me now share my experiences, observations and simply – impressions from the game itself:

  • One for all and all for one – that cooperative game promotes teamwork and communication. We either win together or we lose together; there is also a way to help / assist each other which makes it even better experience and of course, gives the right examples to kids.
  • The quality of components – the map is simply outstanding! And the sturdy, leather book from which you read the chapters as the story unfold is great.
  • Replayability – you would think that you end the story and that is it? No way! First of all, there are two paths to complete the game; then, if you play second time, there is special mode which changes some mechanics and game events; but only accessible if you finished it at least once!
  • One thing which you would need to learn is solving the quests and looking for clues. It is not intuitive at the beginning – what to do, whom to ask, etc. You might lose a scenario or two and have to replay them – but this is never boring as story changes each time!

Summary

That was definitely one of the best experiences our family had with playing together (even though mama usually did not take part in the adventures 🙂 ) The sheer emotion of fighting with henchmen, Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John, robing the noblemen, supporting King Richard and simply solving the puzzles was fun like never. We definitely will look for similar type of games to bring to the table – actually, we already have one on a shortlist…