Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 60 min
Age requirements: 10+
Set-up time: 5 min

The Adventures of Robin Hood is a cooperative, family-friendly board game with narrative style play. It is accessible for a variety of ages and full of surprises.

The Adventures of Robin Hood Rules Description:

In The Adventures of Robin Hood you play as Robin Hood or one of his friends from the Sherwood Forest. The adventure ends when you meet the chapter’s objective or the people run out of hope.

Each player has five meeples. Three of them have trailing tails of different lengths and two of them don’t. On your turn you place the tailed meeples adjacent to your current standing meeple on the board creating a path that shows your movement. You then place your other standing meeple at the end of the front of the conga line and will start from there next turn. If you do not use your longest tailed figure to move you save your strength and add a white cube to the bag making it easier to fight.

The board has tiled sections that may be removed and flipped over when you land on them. Sometimes you can see a hint of what you might encounter, but at times it is a surprise. You read from the book and might have some choices to make depending on who you are playing as and what you encounter.

Some areas of the board are guarded so you must stick to the shadows to avoid detection. You may also choose to fight them by drawing three cubes from the bag. If you draw one white cube you win. If not, your turn is over.

Player order is determined by pulling discs from a bag. If you reveal a disc that matches a player’s color it is their turn. Pulling the red disc activates the guards. When activated, guards capture any players in their area that are not in the shadows. Captured heroes must fight and defeat their captor in order to move again.

You are playing against the clock that is tracked on the Hope track. Events in the game can increase or decrease hope and losing all hope loses you the game. But if you can complete the chapter goals before hope is lost, you win.

Quick Review of The Adventures of Robin Hood:

The Adventures of Robin Hood is a fun, cooperative board game that is really good for families. It has some innovative elements and introduces new rules and concepts as you play. Making it

It might be too simple for many gamers, but gamers with kids should give this adventure board game a longer look.

Speaking of looks, this game looks great on the table. The art is beautiful and the components are top-notch. You are not encouraged to read the rulebook, but after a couple games it might help clarify a few areas.

As I mentioned above there are tiled sections of the board that are popped out and flipped over. This makes exploration fun and exciting. Each tile creates a reaction that is read from the book based on the chapter you are playing. It is a very dynamic and innovative mechanic. It is both tactile and drives the story forward.

Playing The Adventures of Robin Hood teaches you the game. Each chapter adds another new wrinkle and mechanics are introduced naturally. This might frustrate more hard-core gamers that feel the introduction of new things takes too long. But for kids this is great.

This board game is a straightforward move-and-explore game with elements of press your luck. The story adds meaning and branches to this framework, but there is not a bunch of complex mechanics or strategy here.

The Adventures of Robin Hood is best suited for families. It plays well with two to four players, but is best with four. The main question around whether you should pick this up might be do I have kids or young family members to share this experience with.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 3 of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 2 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6 (this is a 5 if you are playing with kids)
Overall 3 out of 6 (this is a 5 if you are playing with kids)