Master Labyrinth Rulebook

Table of Contents

Contents
Setting Up
Playing
Shifting the Labyrinth
More About Moving
More About Tokens
The Magic Wands
Want to Make a Deal?
Scoring
The Magic Ingredients

1 Game board
34 Maze tiles
21 Numbered tokens (numbered 1 to 20 and 25)
4 Playing figures
12 Magic wands
21 Secret formula cards

Setting Up

Before you play for the first time, you'll need to carefully punch out the maze tiles and the tokens.

Mix up the maze tiles, then put them face up, at random on the game board. (They go in the rows between the tiles that are attached to the board.) When you're done, you'll have exactly one tile left over.

Choose a playing figure, and put it on the starting space of the same color.

Turn the numbered tokens face down on the table and mix them up well. Then place one token — still face down — on each tile on the board, except for the tiles around the edge and the starting spaces. (In the illustration, the white circles show where to put the tokens.) Once you've put all the tokens on the board, turn them all face up. Each numbered token has on it a picture of a different magic ingredient. For a description of each ingredient, see the last two pages of this booklet.

Shuffle the 21 secret formula cards, and deal one to each player. (Don't show your card to the others!) Put the rest of the cards away; you won't need them.

Finally, give each player three magic wands. Now you're ready to start playing.

Playing

The youngest player goes first.

You start every turn by shifting the labyrinth. (We'll explain how later.) You must do this on every turn.

Now you may move your figure through the maze. (But you don't have to, if you'd rather stay where you are.) You can move as far as you want to, and even change direction as part of your move. But you can only travel along connecting corridors: you cannot go through walls, or jump to a corridor that doesn't connect.

Finally, if you land on the right token, you can take it.

Tokens have to be picked up in numerical order. A numbered token cannot be taken until all the lower ones are gone, so all the wizards race for token number one first. Once someone gets it, then everyone races for token number two, ans so on. Note: The last token, the mistletoe, has the number 25.

On your turn you can do three things:

Shift the maze (you must do this);
Move your playing figure (if you want to), then;
Take the token you land on (if it's the next one in order).

Shifting the Labyrinth

Around the edge of the board there are 12 triangles. These triangles point to the rows of the labyrinth that can be shifted. (The other rows cannot be shifted because some tiles are attached to the board.)

To shift the labyrinth, take the extra maze tile and push it face up into the maze at one of the triangles. As you push, the whole row of tiles will slide over, and the tile at the other end of the row will be pushed out of the maze. Don't push too far; stop pushing when the tiles are lined up evenly. Notice how some of the corridors are now connected in a different way.

The tile you pushed out is now the extra tile that the next player will use on his or her turn.

You may push the extra tile into any of the 12 triangles, with one exception; you may not push it back into the spot it just came from.

Try it now: Practice shifting the maze and moving your playing piece through the open corridors. Return to your starting position before beginning the game.

Sometimes there will be a token or a playing piece (or both) on the tile that gets pushed out of the maze. If that happens, put it on the tile on the opposite side of the board. (That is, on the tile that you just pushed into the maze.)

More About Moving

You can go past other players when you're moving through the maze. You can even end your turn in the same space as other players.

If you decide to move on your turn, you must end up on a different tile than the one you started on. You cannot just move in a circle and end up on the same tile you were on before.

If you want to, you can stop on a tile with a token on it, even if you cannot pick it up.

Remember, you don't have to move your playing piece on your turn if you don't want to.

More About Tokens

The tokens must be picked up in numerical order. You cannot pick up number two until somebody has picked up number one, and you cannot pick up number three until somebody has picked up number two, and so on.

When you get a token, put it face up in front of you on the table so that everybody can see it.

You can take a token even if another player is on that tile. For example, the player before you gets token number four. Now it's your turn. If you can reach token number five, you can take it, even if another player is already there.

You can only get a token by making a move, not by just standing still. For example, someone gets token number eight. Now it's your turn and you're already on the tile where number nine is. You may not take that token this turn! To get the token, you'd have to move to another tile, then move back on your next turn.

(You could take number nine in this example if you took an extra turn. See Magic Wands.)

The ingredients in your own secret formula are worth extra points to you, so try especially hard to get those tokens. The last token, the mistletoe, is also worth extra points. See scoring.

The Magic Wands

Just like in a fairy tale, in this game you get three wishes. Use them wisely!

At the start of the game you get three magic wands. On any turn, you can give up one of your wands, put it back in the box, and take an extra turn.

You can only use the magic wands on your own turns, and only one wand per turn. If you have any left over at the end of the game, they'll be worth three points each.

Want to Make a Deal?

Suppose a player — let's call him Merlin — cannot see any good move to make on his turn. Another player — let's call her Miranda — can offer Merlin advice ... at a price! "What will you offer me for a good tip?" Miranda asks.

Merlin may offer one of his tokens, or even one of his magic wands. If Miranda likes what Merlin offers, she explains the move.

Now Merlin can decide whether nor not to make the move Miranda showed him. If he doesn't make that move, he doesn't have to pay her anything. But if he does make the move she showed him, he must pay her what he promised.

Scoring

The game is over when the last token – the misteloe, numbered 25 – has been picked up. Now everyone counts his or her points.

Every token is worth the number of points on it. For example, the toad "number 13" is worth 13 points. And the mistletoe, the 21st token, is worth 25 points.
Every token that is part of your secret formula is worth an extra 20 points.
Every unused magic wand is worth 3 points.

The player with the most points is the Master Wizard and the winner of the game.

The Magic Ingredients

Many centuries ago, a lot of people believed that certain items had magic properties and they would use these ingredients to make medicines and magic potions. Nowadays, many of these beliefs seem like foolish superstitions to us, while other beliefs are still common today — for example, scientists today say that eating garlic really does help fight certain illnesses, like colds.

Just for fun, we explain here the magic ingredients pictured in the game. But don't try them yourself — many of these are now known to be dangerous!

1 Crab apples were used to combat fever. Their juice mixed with brandy was believed to be a love-potion.
2 Pine cones were placed under children's pillows to help them fall asleep.
3 Oak leaves were put inside shoes to protect the feet on long walks.
4 Oil from black slugs was used to heal wounds.
5 A four-leaf clover brought you good luck, but only if it was found in the dark. The best place to keep it was in a small bag with beeswax.
6 Eating garlic was thought to prevent injuries. Strings of garlic hung from the ceiling would keep sickness away.
7 Finding a raven's feather was good luck.
8 Henbane was believed to give witches the ability to fly and to turn themselves into animals.
9 Spiders were poisonous, but it brought gook luck if one ran over your hand. Certain garden spiders were believed to have the power to turn themselves into gold if they were caught.
10 Skull moss was moss found growing on human skulls. It was thought to be a treatment for epilepsy.
11 A magic wand could be made from a kind of a snake called a blindworm, if it was killed and dried in a chimney flue.
12 Quartz crystal protected one from witches' magic. When crushed into a powder, it helped prevent nausea.
13 Toads were poisonous unless they were properly prepared. A meal of toads was thought to allow you to understand the language of animals.
14 Fire salamanders could put out fires and also protect you against burns.
15 If a weasel spit at you, you might break in two or go blind, but bones of a white weasel could be used to make yourself invisible.
16 A silver thistle found in the night of the summer solstice could make you strong.
17 If you ate a snake, you could understand the language of the animals.
18 Emeralds protected against epilepsy, fever and poison. They also improved your sight and your memory, but evil deeds could make the stone shatter.
19 The root of the mandrake looks like a little person. It brought luck in love and in games.
20 A black rooster could change itself into a mythical creature called a basilisk. A basilisk could kill you just by looking at you.
25 The berries of the evergreen mistletoe are poisonous, but they were thought to help the metabolism and protect against hardening of the arteries, when taken in the right amount. Mistletoe was also believed to protect against lightning, fire, ghosts and evil magic.

And finally: A magic wand made from a wooden signpost was believed to give a player the advantage in games; hence our magic wands used in this game.

Otto Maier Verlag Ravensburg