Remarkably, Burg Appenzel shares three interesting traits with perhaps the finest piece of English fiction ever written -- Hamlet. Both take place in a brooding castle, both are full of intrigue, and both feature a tragic flaw. I'll take each of these in order in my review of this fine game by <PERSON> and <PERSON>.
The Brooding Castle
When you first open Burg Appenzel (my copy was $39.50 at GameSurplus.com -- still salty in spite of the discount) you find a lovely stack of chits in their frames, one of which contains warnings in German telling you to beware of something. If you're like me and learned all the German you know from <PERSON>, it is likely that you will not understand this admonition to save the chit frame, as it is a part of the game itself. But fear not, for Burg Appenzel is built every bit as tough as a medieval castle. The chits and frames are of thick cardboard that is well stamped, the images are beautiful and well-printed, and the overall fit and feel is simply excellent. Almost everything that comes in the box is a part of the game, including the box itself, which is decorated to show the walls of a castle. The insert that comes with the game serves as the base for the playing surface, and completely fills the box. Sixteen mice, four in each of four colors are included as the playing pieces. They are painted in big bright shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. Although bold and well formed, they aren't the cutest mice you'll meet in your local castle, and that works out well as you're less likely to object when they plunge to their deaths in the dungeons of the castle. On that note . . .
The Intrigue
Burg Appenzel is a simple matching game with more than a few mechanics to muddy up the "simple" part. The goal of each player is to get two of their mice to be sitting on the same kind of cheese at the same time. 84
Cheese pieces are arbitrarily distributed throughout the board, and each player has four mice to make the connections. Once two cheese pieces are matched, the player takes a little chit to indicate they have scored that particular cheese flavor, and then they move on to the next. You make four moves per turn, and four cheese matches is all it takes for victory.
But finding and getting the cheese isn't as simple as it sounds.
To start, the entire board is covered (that is, the castle is covered with sections of roof), and you can only discover spaces that you're close to. You start at the towers in the corners, lift roofs next to you to see what's available nearby, and move into areas of interest.
Then, you need to find what pieces of cheese are currently available. Burg Appenzel's board is a waffle of sorts, with some spaces exposing what's underneath and some not. At any given moment, the cheeses you're looking for may be exposed underneath, or may be under the hidden parts, so you need to keep an open mind. With luck something will be nearby, and it will stay there long enough to get it.
Then of course, there's the plunging-to-your-death part. The cheese pieces that lie underneath the waffle board are all movable. Similar toLabyrinth, each player can move half of the columns and rows of the board to: a) expose the cheese THEY want; b) hide the cheese YOU want; or c) should the mood strike them, slide a trap door underneath your mouse which drops him into the dungeon below. The writers dance around the point a bit, but let's face it -- dropping a few stories into the dungeon of a medieval castle constitutes a bad turn of events. With luck he'll land hard and it will all be over quickly. In spite of this gruesome outcome, my kids giggle every time it happens.
This exceptional image from TabbySunLion shows roof sections hiding most of the
board, and roof-removed areas where mice are roaming. Note that some spaces in the
roof-removed areas always show a plain floor (where red mouse sits) while others
reveal the sliding cheese and pit tiles underneath (where green and yellow mice sit).
Although Burg Appenzel is obviously themed for kids, there is an amazing amount of opportunity to really skewer your opponents. Indeed in a four player game there are twelve moves made between the end of a players turn and the beginning of their next, three of which can change the configuration of the board. Were four adult players to play this game in earnest, it is likely that anyone gaining even a slight lead would quickly be neutralized by trap doors, disappearing cheese or opponent mice camping on their intended goals. I have only played with my kids, so I cannot vouch for how it would work out. 336