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Map Masters is one of those games that looks cute and harmless at first. You set it up, see the bright artwork, and you think you’re in for a casual little walk through a dungeon. But, let’s be fair, after a round or two you realise you’re actually dealing with quite a crunchy puzzle where you’re drawing your own route across a dungeon you built yourself. You place cards, create little mazes and then try not to trap yourself with one stupid line. It’s fun, but it definitely keeps you on your toes.
What I like is that the game lets you play competitively or cooperatively. Same core idea, but the feeling at the table is completely different. Both modes use dry-erase cards, which honestly feels a bit rebellious the first time you scribble across them, and you’ll be picking up items, clearing obstacles and trying to reach whatever the round or mission asks of you.
It’s one of those games where you think you’ve understood everything, and then suddenly you’re turning a card around for the fifth time, quietly asking yourself if a teleporter can save you from the terrible decision you made two minutes ago.
👥 1-5 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designers: Ian Sebastian Bach & Cédrick Caumont
🎨 Artwork: Adrien Journel
🏢 Publisher: Captain Games (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
No matter which mode you play, the idea is simple enough: you lay out dungeon cards and draw one continuous line through the whole thing. Each card has rooms, hallways, stairs, the odd pit or monster, that kind of thing. You start at an entry point and try to make your way to the goal without crossing your own line or using a hallway twice.
There are two levels in the dungeon, the main floor and the underground. You can move between them with stairs, pitfalls or teleporters, and sometimes you suddenly find yourself in the wrong place because you forgot the underground even existed. It happens.
Versus Mode
Versus mode plays over six rounds and works for two to five players. At the start of each round you reveal a primary objective that tells you what’s worth points that round. Before you build your dungeon, there’s a small market where you can buy new dungeon cards, spellbooks or fairy tokens using the coins you collected in previous rounds.
You then take five cards, place them in a vertical layout and start drawing your route. A legal path can’t cross itself, can’t reuse hallways and needs the right items to get through obstacles. If your card layout isn’t working for you, well, I guess that’s part of the game.
Once everyone is done drawing, you count the coins you picked up, check the primary objective, check a random secondary objective and, if you managed to exit the dungeon, you also build toward an end-game bonus. After six rounds you add everything up. Primary points, half the secondary ones, any bonuses and whatever you kept in coins. Highest score wins.
It sounds straightforward, and it mostly is, but you’ll probably catch yourself thinking longer than you meant to.
Cooperative Mode
Co-op mode is a whole different story. Here you pick one of the missions and follow its layout, special rules and objectives. One to five players work together to place cards into a shared layout, and you move several group minis through the dungeon. They need to reach step cards or boss cards depending on the mission.
Before you enter the dungeon you assign spellbooks and fairy tokens to specific minis. You can’t swap them later, so you talk about who needs what and hope you’re right. Each turn a player places a dungeon card and, if a valid route exists from a mini to an objective, you can trace it.
If any mini gets stuck because of an obstacle you can’t clear, a hallway you already used or one of those situations where the route simply doesn’t work, the whole mission fails. So co-op gets a bit tense at times, especially with groups that enjoy debating every single placement.
Items work the same way as in versus mode. You pick them up and spend them to deal with monsters, padlocks, pits or teleporters. Used items don’t count for mission requirements unless you’re playing on the easier settings. Hard mode in particular is, to be honest, not very forgiving.
Artwork, Components & Visual Design
The presentation of Map Masters is friendly and colourful, but the components themselves are pretty simple. Most of the game is just a stack of dry-erase cards that you draw on, plus the markers and sponges. There are also tokens, some wooden minis and a few small decks of cards.
The dungeon cards are readable and not overly busy. Rooms, hallways and underground sections are easy to tell apart. Icons for items and obstacles are clear enough that you can still see what’s going on even when the card is covered in lines, circles and crossed-out icons.
Spellbook and objective cards lean into a slightly more playful style, but it fits the overall look. The meeples (well, group minis) come with stickers you can apply to give them their look, and honestly they turn out rather funny. They’re also big enough that you don’t lose them under everything, which, honestly, is more helpful than it sounds.
Our Experience
Map Masters turned out heavier than we expected. With that cheerful art we assumed it would be something you play while chatting, but as soon as you start building your deck and planning your routes, you realise you’re dealing with a fairly involved little puzzle. It mixes spatial thinking, a bit of deck-building and lots of card turning. It’s satisfying, but not exactly brain-off.
Your deck improves over the rounds, which feels good. Early on you’re stuck with very basic cards and not many options, so the first rounds can feel a bit tight. Once the market opens up you start buying cards with stairs, teleporters or just more flexible hallways, and suddenly the game feels like it opens up.
Some players in our group were quite good at spotting paths and rotating cards mentally. Others, well, let’s just say we relied a bit too much on teleporters and wishful thinking. The game can also drag a bit if people overthink every market buy or card placement. In co-op that effect gets stronger because you’re discussing every decision as a group.
The co-op mode split our table a bit. Some enjoyed the mission structure and the shared puzzle. Others felt it could be stressful, because one wrong move can ruin the entire run. And yes, the group can end up being led by one voice if you’re not careful. Normal difficulty felt about right for people who already enjoy puzzles. Hard mode, to be honest, sometimes felt like a challenge for its own sake.
Still, drawing your path through the dungeon is fun in itself. Even when it goes wrong, it doesn’t feel random. It feels like you made the wrong call somewhere, and there’s something enjoyable about that.
Our Thoughts
For us, Map Masters ended up being one of the nicer surprises from Spiel ‘25. The basic idea is simple, but the way it all comes together has more depth than we thought at first glance.
It’s definitely aimed at people who enjoy puzzles, planning ahead and looking for better options from round to round. It may look like a family game, but in practice it sits closer to a medium-weight puzzle where your choices actually matter.
We really like how buying cards changes the shape of your future puzzles. You’re not just adding icons. You’re changing the geometry you’ll have to work with. It feels quite different from fixed-grid puzzle games.
The rules themselves are clear. No crossing your own path on the same level, each hallway only once, items used the moment you cross them, that sort of thing. It gives the game a solid foundation that doesn’t feel fiddly.
Between the market, the objectives and the timing pressure, we personally enjoy versus mode the most. Co-op offers plenty of content with its 14 missions, but the experience depends more on the group and can sometimes feel a bit rigid. Some people will enjoy that focus. Others might not.
Replayability is strong, though. There are a lot of dungeon cards, different market setups and of course the mission book. Plenty to explore.
The one thing to keep in mind is expectation. If someone buys this for a light family night because it looks sweet and colourful, they might be surprised by how thinky it gets. But if you like spatial puzzles and don’t mind a bit of crunch, I think Map Masters fits that spot nicely.
📝 We received a copy of Map Masters from Captain Games.
