Board Game Review - The Crystal Maze
Will you start the fans please?!...
Back in the early 90's Channel 4 nailed the teatime television slot with the gameshow, The Crystal Maze. Developed by French game show developer Jacques Antoine, The Crystal Maze tasked a team of contestants to perform a range of challenges in an attempt to build enough time to then crack the final challenge - the Crystal Dome.
Set within a fictional Maze - that was actually a purpose built set within a disused aircraft hanger - the contestants would travel across various locations based upon humanities past and future. Guided by the enigmatic Richard O'brien (later to be replaced by Edward Tudor-Pole, and more recently Richard Ayoade) the contestants would take part in a series of challenges with the hope of collecting a Swarovski crystal (dubbed 'Time Crystal') that granted them 5-seconds within the final challenge. To make things more challenging these tasks were very easy to fail. Either by running out of time, or by getting 'locked in'. This meant that not many teams finished their episode with the top prize. According to Digital Spy only 17 teams who took part in the original series walked away with the top prize.
Was this because the games were hard? Or because the contestants were a bit shit? I'll let you decide.
Anyway, to capitalise on the shows success board game manufacturer Milton Bradley (MB) developed a board game thats loosly based upon the television shows premise. While the gameshow promoted a cooperative style of gameplay, the board game pits its players against one another as they travel across time and space.
So, each player takes on the role of a lone adventurer, journeying through the show’s four iconic zones — Medieval, Aztec, Industrial, and Futuristic — all recreated with a certain low-budget charm on the game board. The aim is to complete challenges in each zone to win crystals, which are then used to buy time in the final round: a tabletop version of the Crystal Dome, recreated here as a plastic hemisphere with silver and gold tokens (or just bits of foil if your set is missing a few pieces).
Now, let’s be honest — expecting a board game to fully replicate the energy and theatrical chaos of The Crystal Maze was always going to be a tall order. While the show thrived on physical interaction, set design, and the magnetic weirdness of its hosts, the board game inevitably has to translate all of that into cards, dice rolls, and short-form mini challenges. These range from trivia and word puzzles to dexterity-based tasks like balancing objects or flicking tokens into a target. Some are clever, some are confusing, and some just fall completely flat. There’s less Richard O’Brien banter, and more flipping of cards and vague rule interpretations.
One of the more curious design choices is the competitive angle. Unlike the TV show, where a team worked together (sometimes spectacularly badly), the board game pits players against each other in a race to grab the most crystals. There’s something faintly ironic about turning a co-operative show into a free-for-all, but it does at least give the game a bit of pace and tension — especially if you’re the kind of person who enjoys trash-talking your nan in the Medieval Zone.
And then there’s the rules, which can feel more like a mystery challenge in itself. Vague wording, unclear win conditions, and a general sense that no one at Milton Bradley actually playtested the game before shipping it out. But to be fair, that sort of janky design is part of the charm. You don’t play The Crystal Maze board game expecting airtight mechanics or balanced gameplay — you play it for the nostalgia, the plastic dome, and the excuse to shout “Will you start the fans please?!” in your living room.
So, is it a perfect board game? Not even close. But is it a fun trip back to a time when TV gameshows involved moody industrial zones, wobbly rope bridges, and contestants in shell suits getting locked in a fake dungeon? Absolutely.
.
Comments
Post a Comment