Jedi Mobius

First off I love the premise – a collection of adventurers are exploring the ancient temple to the bird-faced Egyptian god, Horus. The winner is the one who makes it out of the temple alive and with the most valuable collection of treasure. Each adventurer has his or her own special ability to help the player in the game.

This is a press-your-luck style game where you must decide how much to explore. After each round one square of the temple collapses, which is represented by a gray plastic square that covers one square. If it lands on you, you are wounded which forces you to carry less treasure. You also have to watch out for crocodile bites, scorpion stings, snake bites, and the mummy’s touch.

I really like the way the game keeps track of damage in that you have fewer moves and/or objects that you can carry. So there is no need for pencil and paper during the game. That being said, it is not a simple game to learn or teach. There are multiple aspects to the game depending on what part of the temple you are in. I wish the designers could have found a way to integrate these parts better.

The components are of good quality, but the miniature size of the cards are a little difficult to deal with. I understand the reason they are small – if they were larger, the game board would have been a bit unwieldy. But it is still makes game play a little difficult.

I lead this game with my kids, nieces, and nephews ranging in age from six to twelve and they had a good time (though I had to tell them how many moves they had each round).

Overall, I love the theme and some of the game mechanics are ingenious. But the fractured and somewhat complicated set-up will limit the replay value for me.

There is a saying that a mind once stretched never returns to its original shape. I can certainly agree with this when I consider how my board gaming experience changed.

I look at my tabletop experience in two distinct phases – before Catan and after Catan. Before Catan, I had contented myself with the American classics of Clue, Life, Risk, and Monopoly – plus the thousands of iterations and rebrandings that follow every year. Catan introduced my wife and I to the Eurogame. We have been hooked ever since. Catan has outstanding replay value and it ranks at the top of my list of Must Own Games.