Customer Reviews

Family Games cathedral - travel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I purchased my first Cathedral game set twenty-five years ago in a Fairbanks, Alaska bookstore. The simplicity of rules combined with nuances of strategy made it the favorite of my family. All ages could play one another, and as sports commentators so often say, "On any Sunday, any player could beat any other player." So I was delighted to find a travel-size set to go on vacations without risking raising the wrath of the trunk space regulator. In twenty-five years no one has tired of the game. And I love the fact that it doesn't require any batteries!

Great game to play with adults or kids. Love the magnetic board and travel size. However, it can be a pain to try to fit all the pieces inside to close the board.

My husband and I first played this game at a bed & breakfast, and we were hooked. It's quick, easy to learn, and a great way to spend some time together. It's only a two-person game, so it is a good one to sit down with that one child who might need some special attention without getting into a 3 hour Monopoly commitment.

The pieces are lovely & I like the travel case. My one complaint is that we have had two of the magnets come off the pieces. They have been easy to reglue, but I don't think the quality was quite what it should be.

I also first purchased the full sized game years ago in a toy shop in St. Augustine. From the first time I played it I was addicted. Recently I purchased the travel size game and like the original, it is of the finest quality and highly addictive! this is a game you want to play over and over, handling the pieces is a joy. I very much recommend this game and company and will be purchasing more of their innovative games in the future.

I ordered the travel version and found, on my first trip with it, that the written playing instructions were not adequate. You need to go online to get more complete instructions plus instructions for organizing the pieces for storage after use.

Although probably not as stimulating as chess, Cathedral is a pretty interesting game. I bought it for my eleven-year-old nephew and ended up playing it myself with another adult. It was fun to speculate about strategy and to see the repercussions one particular move could have on the entire game. Children (and adults) who enjoy mental challenges would like this game. It's not something to which one could dedicate a lifetime, but it's more challenging than a jigsaw puzzle or a game of checkers. I bought the travel version, and it's very good for travel. Each piece is magnetic, so it sticks to the board. The board itself has a high rim around it, so nothing moves or falls off. The lid is sturdy and keeps all of the pieces secure.

I really enjoy this game, the rules are simple, the strategy is interesting and the games are short. I also think the pieces are really beautiful. To me, the travel edition is absolutely the way to go, even if you don't ever plan on taking it out of the house. It has a nice wood box and is nice and small so you don't have to take up much space on your shelf. I think it's also more satisfying to place the magnetic pieces. Unfortunately on my copy, the game board inserts were slightly warped and not enough glue was used to attach them to the wood board, but my friend had a copy that didn't seem to have this defect.

We didn't realize exactly how small this expensive $20 Cathedral game was going to be, despite it being the travel edition, it is really small, and we would have preferred a picture of the product in comparison to other household items before ordering. The moment we opened the cover, the metal play grid fell off: they did a bad job of gluing it in place. I had to glue it back in place before I could give it to my cousin for Christmas. The wood was cheap and it didn't even have hinges for the board to open with, but small weak wooden pegs. I almost broke the thing opening it as if it did have hinges because every other travel-sized game I have used before has hinges. The pieces themselves are made of wood and look drab and simplistic. The game comes with a plastic mold that was obviously intended to help put the pieces back in place after play, but the mold is impossible to read, and you simply can't put the pieces back the way they came, which makes the mold useless. We put the pieces back by standing some of them on their side, but then the mold didn't fit, and we couldn't close the box. We threw out the damn mold to close the box so we could give it. It seems obvious to me that the company spent very little time play-testing the game before selling it. I felt guilty giving this to my cousin for Christmas but I had little choice, and she was extremely unexcited by receiving it. I highly recommend making sure you get the regularly sized Cathedral game, and avoid this frustrating and diabolical piece of firewood.

I have the full size version of this game. It's fun to play. I like different, this game is different. But the Travel Version of this game that I received was just slapped together in someone's backyard! The game-board itself is a paper playing board glued to a magnetic surface which is glued to a wooden box. The magnet underneath the playing surface doesn't even reach the edges of the playing field, so the edges are not magnetic. Whoever glued the playing surface together was extremely sloppy! There is glue residue all around the edges of the playing field. It seriously looks like some little kid put this together. One of the playing pieces didn't even have a magnet glued to the bottom of it. It just fell out when I opened the box. The top portion of the box has another playing field on it. Only the paper playing field is warped. Extremely low quality. This thing was clearly made on a Friday, before a holiday, because there was just no care in quality control. I returned it. Shame, I really wanted this.

We purchased our first Cathedral made out of poly stone 6 years ago and it's been one of our favorite games. Me and my husband used to stay all night to play this game.(till I won)
As our kids grew, they were interested in this game but we didn't let them touch it because poly stone would break easily.
So we finally got this set for our kids so they can play at home and in the car.

When I opened it, it was smaller than I thought and the workmanship was not that great. The box has lined magnet sheet on the bottom which is a great idea so kids can play in the car and the little pieces won't fall off from the board. But the corner of the box was not well sanded and didn't look nice or clean.
Each piece is made out of wood and has magnet on the bottom but the wood part doesn't have nice, clean finishing. Some pieces which have several corners seem like they were glued together so I don't know how long they are going to last. I've seen cathedral classic at my German friend's house(they bought it in Germany) and their pieces were solid hard wood but this set is not.

The latch to lock two wooden box is flimsy. It is quite small and hard to latch.

I now think that I should have bought cathedral classic with a little bit more money.

Overall, the game itself is really fun and the idea of travel case is good but the quality and workmanship need to be improved.