The Adventures of Robin Hood

Today's review is of the 2021 release, The Adventures of Robin Hood. For 2-4 players, it takes 60 minutes.

Overview

You and your friends live in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1193. The evil Prince John terrorizes the land; your goal is to evade him and his cronies and complete your adventures. Will you be successful?

Components; image from here

The Adventures of Robin Hood is played on an 'open map,' meaning there are no grids or hexes to guide movement. Instead, you use provided wooden pieces of varying lengths to move your character, investigate, and battle. The game is played in chapters, and the included book (212 pages!) guides you, driving the story forward, giving you objectives for that chapter, and presenting options for your turn (initially, your turn may be guided, but after laying the groundwork, your turn option generally is "take your turn," meaning move and investigate/battle as you like to try to fulfill the objective). It has a 'choose your own adventure' feel to it, and you may turn to different pages in the book based on the choices you make. A timer mechanism in the game adds suspense, having consequences if you don't complete the objective in time. I'll say no more to avoid spoilers. 

Review

This is a fun game. Suitable for families, it is simple and quite different than most I've played. The map is unique- not only lacking a grid to guide movement, it has tons of 'cutouts' that you flip over when instructed to change the layout or threats. That mechanism then preserves the board for the next chapter, as the intent is to eventually play through the entire story of Robin Hood. The map & book are of high quality. The initial stage of chapter one was pretty restricted in player choice, but that made sense- they used the opening to teach you the rules. Once through that, your turn options opened up. A cooperative game, it was fun to discuss among the players how each character should proceed. 

I 'ding' it mildly for two reasons:

- I don't know how replayable this is. I've heard you can play the entire story, then go back and make different choices for a wildly different experience. That's cool, but that means it is replayable only if you choose differently- if you make the same choices, you'll know exactly what to do and where to go, giving you a huge leg up against the game. (Of course, if you have a bad memory, you could play this and let it sit for a few years before picking it back up.)

- The map cutouts are done well, but still cardboard. Even flipping them once, you see signs of wear that would only worsen with repeated usage. 

Ultimately, I like this. Though unique, it does have echoes of Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth. What the latter does with an app (tracking board state and placing exploration/threat tokens), this does with the map cutouts and storybook. 

Rating: A-