Hey PI-Fans,
It’s always the oddest thing isn’t it?
Always popular as a timed cooperative party game, Magic Maze is a cooperative board game about navigating a mall sold by us, a store a store in the mall. Having made the leap from the now defunct Dude Games to new publisher Sit Down Games, this new printing of Magic Maze has arrived on the scene along with it’s spin off sequel Magic Maze Tower which sees the haplessly broke adventures from the original Magic Maze thrown into jail after their failed plot to acquire adventuring gear through larceny.
Keeping the unintentional crime theme going is the revised edition of In A Grove by Oink Games, another pocket sized deduction based minigame from the people who brought us Durian, Scout and Dokojong. In this pocket sized deduction game, players have to gauge which of the three suspects in a lineup are the murderer, often making educated guesses based on the decisions made by other players.
There’s more stuff filtering onto the shelves as we chug along, so you’re always welcome to pop over to take a look at the shelves!
- Kenneth, PI Games Manager
This town has too many murders and too many detectives. Today several detectives have witnessed a murder. Using the information that only you are aware of as well as considering the reasoning of the other detectives, you must carefully and skillfully try to gain the upper hand and declare which suspect is the criminal.
In a Grove is a game of bluffing and deduction, and the player who makes too many false accusations loses the game. The game is played in rounds. Each round, each player receives one of the eight silhouettes (which are numbered 2-8 with one blank), while three silhouettes are placed face down in the center of the table as suspects and the final silhouette is dubbed the victim. You have to determine which suspect has the highest number, revealing them as the culprit, unless the number 5 is in the among the suspects, upon which the culprit rules are reversed.
Players will have the opportunity to both look at the face down suspects and possibly alter the arrangement of suspects in the arrangement with the hopes of throwing off the other players before playing an accusation token on the suspect they believe to be guilty. Anyone who has accused the correct suspect receives their accusation marker back. Any markers incorrectly placed are flipped colored-side down and given to the player who owns the marker on top of the stack. At the end of a turn if a player has eight or more tokens — or has no tokens — then the game ends, and that player loses.
In A Grove (Revised Edition): 2-5 Players, 20 mins, Ages 9+ (The Revised printing of In A Grove contains components for up to 5 players)
After being stripped of all their possessions, a mage, a warrior, an elf, and a dwarf are forced to go rob the local Magic Maze shopping mall for all the equipment necessary for their next adventure. They agree to map out the labyrinth in its entirety first, then find each individual’s favorite store, and then locate the exit. In order to evade the surveillance of the guards who eyed their arrival suspiciously, all four will pull off their heists simultaneously, then dash to the exit. That’s the plan anyway…but can they pull it off?
Magic Maze is a real-time, cooperative game. Each player can control any hero in order to make that hero perform a very specific action, to which the other players do not have access: Move north, explore a new area, ride an escalator… All this requires rigorous cooperation between the players in order to succeed at moving the heroes prudently. However, you are allowed to communicate only for short periods during the game; the rest of the time, you must play without giving any visual or audio cues to each other. If all of the heroes succeed in leaving the shopping mall in the limited time allotted for the game, each having stolen a very specific item, then everyone wins together. If the sand timer ever completely runs out, all players lose the game: Your loitering has aroused suspicion, and the mall security guards nab you!
Magic Maze: 1-8 Players, 15 mins, Ages 8+
The adventures of the dwarf, the elf, the barbarian and the magician at the mall were a failure and our (brave?) adventurers found themselves arrested. Now prisoners in a tower of a high-security prison, they are now planning a prison break to make a run for it. To get out however, they will probably need the help of a 5th hero to help them….
Magic Maze Tower is a cooperative puzzle game played on a single Level tile, without an hourglass (you can take your time!), without a “do something” token, but the communication is still limited: Speaking is still forbidden. The goal of the game is to complete as many levels as possible to escape the prison. Unlike the original Magic Maze however, Magic Maze Tower focuses on the puzzle solving aspect of the original Magic Maze, lacking the timed aspect of the original to encourage players to think through the puzzles themselves.
The game also contains 2 tiles allowing you to play the original Magic Maze with the little sister’s new pawn and character, functioning as a mini-expansion for the original game.
Magic Maze Tower: 1-4 Players, 20-40 mins, Ages 9+ (Magic Maze Tower is a standalone game that does not require the original Magic Maze to play. The Little Sister Expansion included with Magic Maze Tower can be used as an expansion set for the original Magic Maze)
