| Our Recommended Age: | 8+ |
| Players: | 2-4 |
| Recommended Age: | 10-99 |
| Cost: | $39.99 |
| Play Time: | 45 minutes (may vary) |
| Company Site: | www.habausa.com |
Adventureland is a super fun game that involves battles, gaining followers, trying to get the most victory points all while trying to avoid the Water Sprite. Easy to pick up and with 3 scenarios to choose from you can and will want to replay it over and over again!
HABA produces some of the highest quality games I have seen. Custom shaped good quality wooden pieces are a staple in their games and personally I love them for it! Adventureland doesn’t disappoint in quality or fun and has quickly become one of our favorite Family Game Night games. It has a standard lift top lid but the box is pretty sturdy and while it doesn’t have a fancy insert it does come with bags for parts! Sometimes the box is the size it is just because of the board and we are ok with that.
Speaking of the board, it is a quad-fold (is that a thing?) chipboard style with beautiful artwork. Castle walls surrounding cities, forests, water with tiny boats on it (I LOVE attention to detail like this) and you can even just make out a monster or two in the fog. The adventurers and Water Sprite are made of good quality wood as are the companions. The rest of the pieces are made out of the same quality chipboard as the playing board. Over all very good quality pieces and parts for Adventureland but then again it’s HABA which has always had good quality parts.
A recommended age of 10+, or rather 10-99, is suggested by HABA but the Diva at 8 played just fine. I think unless you want to help with strategy 8+ is a good age for this game but younger players could probably manage as there is very little actual reading needed. If you don’t mind helping with strategy or reminding of rules 6+ or 7+ would be ok too. Especially if the younger kids have played a lot of games before this one. Now let’s see how we play!
Objective:
First let me tell you there are THREE options for what game you want to play. They have 3 scenarios and for the very first time it suggests playing The Fellowship which is what I will explain. However, aside from the name and the fact that your goal is to collect companions has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings. The goal is always Victory Points but in this case you get those by gaining Gold and Companions and defeating Fog Creatures.
Setup:
First open the board and place it in the middle of the playing area so everyone can reach it. Now shuffle the Terrain cards and put the deck (face down) next to the board. Do the same for each of the following decks keeping them in their own piles: Fog Creatures, Sword Tiles, and Herb Tiles. Take the companions and the Water Sprite and put those along with the gold next to the cards.
Put the scenario or Adventure Card near the piles of cards and companions. Now each player chooses a color from Black, Purple, Green or my favorite, Orange and puts their Scoring Marker or Cube on the Point Tracker. Use the chart in the instructions to determine how many of each players’ pieces as well as companions and swords go back in the box and will not be used. I will show you the 4 player way since we usually all play together. You’ll notice the board is set up like a grid not unlike chess. There are two sides with A – K and two with 1-10. In the top left corner of the board there are spaces along A-E and 1-5 which are the starting areas. Put one adventurer in each of the spots.
Now flip over the first 8 Terrain cards one at a time and put the items shown on them in the spots also shown on the cards. If you draw Fog card place what it shows, where it shows and then draw a replacement card. Keep them all face up in a pile. This will be the discard pile. That’s it. You are ready to play! Youngest player goes first.
Play:
On your turn you do two actions. First flip over two Terrain Cards and put the items shown in the spots shown. Then you can move your adventures. You can move 1 Adventurer in any number of spaces in a straight line twice OR move 2 different Adventurers one time each. You do NOT have to move though or you can just move 1 Adventurer one time and be done. Of course there are rules to moving!
You can NOT move up on the board OR left! So choose wisely which Adventurer you move and where you move it. Yes you can only move down or to the right but you can jump over other Adventurers and Companions if you want. Cannot jump over Fog Creatures or the Water Sprite though. Now if your Adventurer lands on a River tile and there’s a gold piece on it take the gold piece from it and place it in front of you. Same thing if it is on a Forest with herbs or a Mountain with a sword except first check it’s value and then put it in front of you. A City tile means with a companion means the companion joins you and moves with your Adventurer as one unit and you can have as many Companions as you can pick up!
Landing in the Fog with a Fog Creatures of course means you have to fight the Fog Creature. You have to have at least the same combat strength that is on the Fog Creature tile in red. Your Adventurer’s combat strength is 1 on its own and each companion adds 1 each. Before the fight decide how many swords you want to use but keep in mind that they are out of the game so choose carefully. For each one you use you get to roll a die once and only up to 3 swords can be used. Add the total of the dice roll to your Combat total. Some swords have a number on it and that number is also added to your Combat total. If you haven’t won yet, herbs can also add combat strength but these are also out of the game when you use them. The amount is on the tiles in green and you can use as many as you want.
As for Gold there are choices. You can gain 1 strength for each Gold you put back in the pile OR you can use one to reroll a die. You can do this as many times as you can pay gold and since the game ends when all the swords and companions are gone, you might use Gold instead. With all these ways to gain strength you should be able to beat Fog Creatures. If you win take the Fog Creature and put it face down in front of you. If you lose then the Adventurer, any Companions, Gold and of course Herbs and Swords are removed from the game! Also the Fog Creature stays on the board. Tip, if you can tell you are going to lose don’t waste Swords or Herbs or Gold.
Oh and if you are on an empty tile and someone has to add something to it you get whatever it is right away however, that also means you have to fight Fog Creatures even if it is not your turn. Free stuff! Now a quick word about the Water Sprite. Whenever Gold is placed on the board put the Water Sprite on top of it. If it is already on the board then it glides down the River to the new spot and removes any Adventurer in the way. Yeah, they leave the game! The Diva had this happen 4 times in a row! Oh and that includes companions too…gone.
Winning:
The game ends when there are no more Swords AND no more Companions. If you run out of one you can draw from the box but when you run out of BOTH the game is over. Finish the current round so everyone gets the same amount of turns. Sometimes players won’t be able to move any more and the game just goes on without them UNLESS all players cannot move and then the game ends regardless of Swords or Companions. To determine the winner you add up Victory Points, however those depend on which Adventure you chose in the beginning.
Since we are using Adventure 1: The Fellowship all the points are added during game play so when the game ends whoever has the most points wins! Which was not the kids but in an interesting twist the Diva came in second place!
Adventureland is a neat game that relies on a bit of strategy and luck of the drawing of cards. I like how it can make the game more even between the Gentleman who is starting to beat his dad more and more and the Diva who is starting to place closer and closer to her brother. Great for kids and fun for adults and great to play over and over too!
Share your Adventure with us! @MyGeeklings #Adventureland @HABAusa
