Magic Maze

To set up Magic Maze, place the central start tile on the table with all four player pawns occupying the four middle spaces. Shuffle the remaining mall tiles into a deck according to the chosen scenario and place the out-of-order tokens and theft tile nearby. Distribute action tiles randomly among the players, ensuring everyone's tile arrow points in the designated starting direction. Prepare the sand timer and any scenario-specific tokens, keeping communication rules in mind before you flip the timer to begin.

The objective of Magic Maze is a cooperative real-time challenge where players must work together to help four fantasy heroes—a mage, a warrior, an elf, and a dwarf—steal their equipment from a local shopping mall and successfully escape before time expires. Each player controls specific directional or utility actions available on their assigned tile, but no single player controls an entire character by themselves.

During a turn, players perform actions simultaneously without speaking, making noises, or pointing. You may only execute actions depicted on your current action tile using any character, moving them as far as allowed in that direction until they hit an obstacle or another pawn. Special tiles allow players to explore new areas, teleport characters, or use escalators. Whenever a sand timer runs out, players flip it and pass their action tile to the left in advanced scenarios, introducing new cooperative communication hurdles.

Magic Maze does not use a traditional victory point scoring system. Instead, success is evaluated purely on whether the players successfully complete each scenario of the initiation campaign and ultimately win the game together as a team.

The game ends immediately if the sand timer runs out at any point, resulting in a loss for all players. Conversely, the game ends in victory when all four heroes successfully escape through their matching color exits after retrieving their equipment, depending on the scenario rules.