Matthew BaileySo we have had a string of pretty mediocre games… Let’s FINALLY play something decent… I introduce to you (played by myself, Jack(7) and Toby(3)… “Magic Mountain.”
“Magic Mountain” is a cooperative, strategic, marble racing, pachinko sorta game. There is absolutely no reading involved so you could conceivably play this with anyone old enough to not choke on a marble.
It won this year’s “kinderspiel des jahres 2022” (which is obvious by the awful unpeelable sticker stuck on the version currently available in the UK’s box)
The general concept is you need to get your 6 wizard’s apprentices down to the bottom of the mountain and not the witches/ This works by rolling balls (will o’ wisps) down the mountain and where a ball touches a wizard or witch you move that wizard or witch to the next matching colour. (see video for this shown)
It’s a fairly simple concept but it is super fun. Strategy is fairly light but it works really well and is great fun.
Now I do have a few issues… It is fairly easy, and we beat the most difficult difficulty on the second try.
We did however fairly quickly “house rule” a VS game where one team player the witches and one the wizards which worked really well and ended up being almost more fun.
The component quality is pretty good. The board is well made and the figures are decent enough.
Now the kicker… this game is expensive retailing around £40 and is not the easiest to find due to its popularity so getting a second-hand copy might be tricky and I cannot see it going on “sale” anytime soon. You might be able to find the original german version “Zauberberg” a fraction cheaper but probably not worth it once you pay for postage.
We really liked this game and I am happy to have it in my collection (always buy the kinderspiel winner every year). I would definitely recommend it but if you want to spend £40 on children’s games this xmas while this is a good one I would probably recommend 2 very good games at the £20 mark instead.
So big thumbs up with a slight pause for the price.
