The Mysterious Forest Review

One of the greatest joys in gaming is bringing others into the fold. Every adult gamer longs for the day they can pass the fun onto their children. But the questions are where and when to begin? We watch them suffer through the mindless Chutes and Ladders, then absorb the bling of Monopoly without it hopefully stealing their soul in the process, and about the time they reach for The Game of Life, we try to intervene, with mixed results.

“What’s this word, mommy?”

“Imperium, son. Twilight Imperium. Now, if you’ll put down your crayons and follow me through these rules here…”

But there’s a better way, and The Mysterious Forest can be your guide. French manufacturer Iello Games has created an excellent gateway adventure for kids, set up as a co-op game so the whole family can help Jonas, the hero of the graphic novel The Wormworld Saga, through the magical forest he discovered from a special painting in his grandma’s attic.

Because it’s not easy to get a wardrobe up a cheap folding ladder

The game begins by laying out a series of cards to create the quest’s path, ending in a confrontation with the evil queen, who’s honestly a little creepy looking. Parents, include her standee at your own discretion. Players take turns flipping over cards to reveal each challenge and the items required to complete it, then returning them face-down to the table. Going by collective memory, symbol dice are rolled and gear is chosen to fill the adventurer’s backpack and complete those challenges, including the chance for item-swapping help from Loki, your friendly orange-furred rabbit-squirrel scrounger of stuff.

Once full, the team flips over the first card on the path, plays tokens from their pack to match its symbols and then moves the hero’s mini onto it. Repeat till the end and the evil queen is defeated, or until a card’s requirements are unable to be met. Along the way, Jonas meets the Wanderer, who has the power to create two tokens that can be used for any gear, provided his price is met. That’s it, rules-wise, and it makes for a fast, entertaining kids’ game that teaches memory skills and features challenges which actually require practical solutions, preserving their innocence for years before they try to rationalize how a fireball, a potion of healing and a glaive will allow them to move across a desert at night and get closer to Volkare’s army.

Using items for their intended purpose: important in games and life

The Mysterious Forest features great artwork, quick setup time and simple rules. It's a game that can introduce children to the epic quest narrative, sprinkling in crucial gaming concepts such as problem solving and planning skills. It's a game that could start kids, much like the resin protagonist, down the path to a new world of gaming fun.