Customer Reviews

Ravensburger Enchanted Forest - Family Game

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My daughter has loved this game since she was six years old. The craftsmanship of the game itself is beautiful. The game-pieces and the little trees are wooden, and the illustrations are of the old-fashioned fairytale variety, very intricate and colourful. The cards are good,thick cardboard and will stand up to years of use. It looks like a very old game that one would find in an attic trunk. Winning depends on such a variety of strategy, memory, and just plain luck that a combination of ages can play concurrently and feel equally challenged. I recommend The Enchanged Forest highly. It is a feast of colours, a delight to behold and touch, and it provides good mental exercise.What more could you ask?

I am a child psychologist, and this game has been a fixture in my office for 15 years. It promotes concentration and working memory, imagination, and a fun competitiveness devoid of aggression. What I find helpful is that the rules of the game are easily adapted to suit different age groups. An outstanding game.

The Enchanted Forest was my favorite game as a child, and I can still vividly remember it as an adult. The illustrations and board design have an old-world, "once-upon-a-time" feeling, and the wooden playing pieces enhance the fairy tale image. I thought that I would never again see this unique game, and I am thrilled that it is still available. Buy this game and you, too, will be enchanted!

The good King is looking for someone to take over the Throne as he has no children. He has decided to ask people to locate magic treasure to prove their worth.

The board is made up of twisting and branching paths that lead from the village, through the forest, and into the castle. Cards are used to determine what the King is looking for. The card has a scene from a popular fairy tale and a picture of the desired object. Players move their pieces through the forest looking for trees. Each of the tree pieces has a treasure hidden under it. Players landing on a tree get to secretly look at the treasure. Once they know where the desired treasure is, they can head to the castle to tell the King. The first player to successfully find three desired treasures wins the game.

Magic can also be used in the game. On certain rolls of the dice, players can teleport to any tree of their choosing, go to the castle gate, or randomly change the desired treasure card. Movement is a little different than in most games. Two dice are used but they are not added. For instance, a roll of a 5 and a 4 can get you nine spaces along but it can also get you five spaces in one direction and four in another. In this way a 4 and a 5 can be used to move one space. Thus subtraction skills become as important as addition skills. While my two kids love the game (ages four and seven) it has elements that make it palatable to the adult as well. Check it out.

This is a beautiful, well thought out, strategic game. Ravensburger is such a great German (I believe) company for beautiful, durable, mentally stimulating games. I used to buy my own daughter (now 25) their toys at the Early Learning Center (since gone out of business) years ago and was thrilled to find them through Amazon to purchase gifts for my niece and nephew. I cannot explain what a great time my niece and I had playing the Enchanted Forest (over and over). As you read the instructions you realize the Ravensburger people thought about every little detail that could have made game play tedious or lengthy and you realize that they truly thought of everything to make it enjoyable. My niece is 8 yrs old and a bright student and we thoroughly enjoyed playing this 3 times in a row. Average game play is about 1/2 an hour (maybe it would be longer with more players). Retention and strategy are important, but it is still simple enough that they will not become annoyed. The little trees that are placed around the board (with the secret treasures hidden underneath) are absolutely precious and well made, as is the board itself (beautiful artwork)and the playing cards (no flimsy thin cards that will rip in a few weeks) but nice thick sturdy cards. If you think this game is pricey, wait till you and your child receive it, how pleased you will be and once you play, you'll realize what a bargain it is. This is one to be passed down to the next child in the family. It was very nice to read the child psychologist's review and know it is used in therapy.

Irene, Caldwell, NJ

This is definitely a game that my daughter will grow in to. She's just a little more than 4, so we have modified this game to be more cooperative and yield faster rewards, and it is our absolute favorite.

For parents of 4-5's who might be interested, we have made the following modifications:
* We play 2 at a time and it's mainly cooperative with some competition thrown in (mostly hooting, hollering, racing) with a much faster tempo (game done in 20 mins).
* Our rules are a blend of Junior Labyrinth, Memory, Sorry, and I Spy (other games that she loves and plays well on her own without help).
* Child wants to win but needs help with strategy at times.

The modifications:
1. We move as instructed with the dice. Doubles get you to a tree or straight to the key (to cut down on some of the hassle of landing on the key, which can drag on and on).
2. When you land on a tree, you show everyone the treasure that you found (like Memory). Both of us work together to pattern the trees into our memory, and we work as a team to get to and identify the different tree-treasures.
3. Then we basically are racing to the key via doubles or dice rolls to try to claim whatever treasure card is showing and helping each other either remember or try to figure out which of the "unseen" treasures it might be.
4. Whoever gets to the key gets to try to remember where the treasure card was (we help each other).
5. If you win the card, you take both the card and the tree for your "treasure area" (again, like Memory or I Spy) and go back to the village to "start again." Of course, if you roll a double on your next turn, you can choose to go to either a tree or right back to the key to claim your next treasure.
6. The person with the with the most treasures at the end wins (like Memory or I Spy). She usually beats me by 2 cards, and has a wonderful time doing it.

We did play a "real" game tonight and the first card really stumped everyone, so folks had seen all the trees, then forgotten them, because we forgot that a double could change the treasure card. 40 minutes in, only I had 2 cards, Dad had been sent back to the village, daughter was dancing around the room. Went back to modified play and she had a great time playing 2 more rounds.

There are a number of things that I love about this game:
1. As described above, this game has loads of potential so it can be modified to be faster/more cooperative/easier for kids all the way down to 4 years of age.
2. It's Ravensburger, which means that you are getting really excellent quality game, with nice pieces, a beautiful playing board, strategy, etc. I can see this game lasting a really long time.
3. She is going to grow into it over time--as opposed to growing out of it over time. Many "kid" games are for such a narrow age range, say 5-7 years, and I find that the 4 & 5 year olds memorize the plays really quickly and a lot of the games can become boring or just too easy. (I Spy, while loads of fun, is enjoying a retirement for this reason, until everyone "forgets" the memorized game cards; Operation is just too one-dimensional.

Super game, thrilled.

I had this game when I was younger, so I bought it for my 10 year old daughter who loves games. She loves it! My other daughters play it as well, and the youngest is 5 and plays it easily. They have so much fun playing the game that they really don't mind who wins, which is rare with my competitive ones.

This is a very good game. We've been playing it over the weekend, and it is everything other reviewers write - it's a strategy game, it's memory developing, it's engaging and it's very well made.

However, it rarely takes less then one hour from beginning to end, and it's not very dynamic - not much happens in the beginning, so it's kind of drags for a while. I noticed, that the game was of more interest for the kids nine and over. Younger kids just don't have enough patience, interest and stamina to go through all game.

I definitely recommend the game - but for kids older than nine.

This is a typical board game, and my 7 yr old daughter was sort of "bored" with it. It does seem to drag on and takes a LONG time to finish due to the "magic" option where you can be easily thwarted in your effort to win and sent back to the beginning, etc. It took us 45 mins to get one-third through the game playing with four people, then we called it quits. Will change the rules next time we play to make it quicker. We prefer faster games like shut the box, or mancala. Quality of game is nice but not extraordinary, the trees are now plastic. And it is pretty expensive for a board game. Seems a lot like Pengaloo which I wish we got instead, same basic memory game, different look, lot cheaper.

I bought it based only on the reviews, so when it arrived I wasn't sure how it would go over. My two kids - almost 5yrs and almost 7yrs - have been playing it every day for a month and a half, at least once a day - and I don't see it stopping any time soon. It does take a while, but they never seem to tire of it. We've also created our own version of playing on teams so that kids and adults can play together evenly. It requires concentration, memory, thinking of your next move - all things that are hard to find in board games for younger kids. This isn't your Candyland type of game (I've played enough of that game to last me a lifetime) so I'm really enjoying having this one around!