Wouter & Ymke 
Robin Hood returned from the crusades to Sherwood Forest, only to find out his best friend, Little John, had been captured by the guards. Benefiting from King Richard’s absence, Prince John is on his way to take over the kingdom. Using the arrival as a distraction Robin and his friends are trying to get Little John out and free the kingdom from Prince John’s takeover.
2-4 players, age 10+
Playing time: 60 minutes
Design and artwork by Michael Menzel
Publisher: 999 Games (originally published by KOSMOS)
https://www.999games.nl/
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a story driven game where players work together to reach a goal provided by the book. Each round player disks are drawn from a pouch to determine the playing order. After discussing options with their teammates, the player moves their character with special movement figures and depending where they end up, take an action. They can explore when touching a tile with a ‘?’, reading the piece of the story on the page the tile shows and possibly turning the tile over and gaining some advantage or needed information. When they reach an exposed guard, they can overpower him and make the open spaces a bit more safe and give the land new hope.
In the pouch there’s also a red disk, when this is drawn the guards capture characters when they share the same open space, time is lost and the land loses hope. Play continues until players reach the goal for that chapter or the time runs out.
A hardcover storybook guides the game, this makes it very easy to start playing as you are learning the basics during the introduction chapter. The first few rounds explain step by step what each character should do, where to move and what actions to take, eventually leaving you to finish the chapter when you learned the ropes.
The board is dual layered with tiles that you can turn over embedded in it. This way the board will be exactly like you left it when you continue playing. The same tile on the board will lead to different stories in the book, depending on which chapter you’re playing.
Playing as a team, reading in turns, discussing your options are all things that contributed to entertaining afternoons with the kids who already knew the story of Robin Hood and were thrilled to dive into it themselves.
