A race between two players

CHENNAI: Uwe Rosenberg is a legendary board game designer, who’s put out some of the most beloved big-box games out there. However, he also appears to have a soft spot for the two-player game, with classics such as Patchwork and Fields of Arle to his name.

Today, we’re taking a look at his latest release of the latter type, Robin of Locksley. Everybody knows the story of Robin Hood, and this game is set during the steal-fromthe- rich phase of his career; the only real departure being the notion that there were two siblings, as seen on the cover, who were disinherited heirs of Locksley and who are now competing to be the most famous outlaw in the land.

Robin of Locksley is, at its heart, a race game with a fairly unusual structure. Every turn, you’ll move your Robin Hood piece around a 5x5 grid of loot tiles, pocketing whatever you land on. Once that’s done, if possible, you’ll move your Bard piece along the fame track that borders the grid. Each tile on that track features a challenge — some sort of requirement that you need to have met in order for your Bard to swagger onto it and start singing your praises.

If one player manages to lap the other player’s bard, they immediately win the game; else, the first player to complete two laps around the track is the winner. It’s a straightforward game, certainly, but there are two little touches that make Robin of Locksley extremely compelling. The first is that you can’t just move your Robin wherever you want — you can only move via an L-shaped path, exactly like the knight’s move in chess.

This immediately forces players to put a lot more thought into how they move — instead of just going for the obvious tile that you need right now, you might instead set up a sequence that sees you pick it up some turns later, but puts you in a position to get other tiles that you need along the way (assuming, of course, that your opponent doesn’t upset the applecart somehow).

This emphasis on planning lifts the game above the realm of the purely tactical exercise it would have otherwise been. The second has to do with how you move your bard at the end of your turn. You can move as far as you like when you move your bard, as long as you meet the requirements of each successive challenge.

Now that’s not going to be easy at all, but you do have another option — the loot tiles you’ve been collecting all game are necessary for these challenges, but you can also sell them once you’ve amassed a certain number of a type to gain some gold. Gold isn’t worth any points, but you can spend a gold to essentially bribe your way past the requirements of a challenge and move your bard past it even if you don’t qualify for it.

This is huge, because it prevents any player from getting bogged down too much. It also means that, even if one player’s lagging behind, a couple of judicious payments here and there could result in an absolutely monstrous sprint down the track — and both players know that! It’s a delightful little touch that keeps everyone on their toes throughout the game.

Admittedly, Robin of Locksley is an abstract game — any theme could’ve been used here, although the names of the challenge tiles are nicely done and do tie in with the theme. That minor criticism aside, Robin of Locksley is a wonderful two-player game, and is a perfect example of how to accomplish a lot with very little.

Arjun Sukumaran http://goo.gl/uNBWN3 (Arjun is a gamer, book lover and an all-round renaissance man)