Java Garcia Berenguer and Ramón Rodriguez Munoz have taken the name of their tile-laying maze game from the name of the architect Daedalus, who in the Greek myths was the architect who built the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. In Dedalo's the 2-6 players will be laying tiles to create and block paths to the exits and moving their mini to win by being the first to reach an exit. But along the way you'll have to escape the clutches of the Minotaur!
Players start each turn with three tiles. On your turn you can take three actions, which can include the same action twice but not three times. You can lay a tile, you can move your mini and/or you can push another player's mini to an adjacent tile.
Laying a tile can open up new parts in the Labyrinth and can close off existing paths. Tiles with stars on them can be overlaid on tiles already in position provided that the tile you are overlaying has fewer stars on it. The bag of tiles will include a limited number of Collapse tiles (equal to half the number of exits). Play one of these on an exit and you take it out of commission. If you pick up one of the rare Collapse tiles (with four players or fewer, it'll be the only Collapse tile) you'll want to save it to play just as an opponent's mini is approaching an exit: that can be a particularly satisfying play - or particularly infuriating for the player on the receiving end, who has to turn around to make their way to another exit.
Closed off paths and collapsed exits aren't your only hazard. It's a Labyrinth so of course there's a Minotaur... The Minotaur comes into play when any player draws one of the Minotaur tiles, which they must play before taking any other action. The player who draws and plays a Minotaur tile moves the Minotaur figure as many places as there are Minotaur tiles in play. When the Minotaur catches up with a player's mini, the player is returned to the starting position and the Minotaur is removed from the game until the next Minotaur tile is drawn... Adding the Minotaur into the mix adds to the excitement of the game, especially as there are rules limiting players' ability to change the Minotaur's direction of movement.
Dedalo's is a fun game that can be played and enjoyed by children but which adults can play too as a surprisingly tactical tussle. Aside from the threat of the Minotaur and collapsed exits, competitive players' use of tiles to close off other players' paths make this quite a 'take that' race game. Canny players will always want to keep a tile with one or more stars in hand to use if their path gets blocked. But even with 'take that' maze closures, our Board's Eye View plays of Dedalo's rarely stretched beyond 20-30 minutes.
With plastic minis for the Minotaur and as the players' avatars, and maze tile art from Lorena Gestido, Atomo Games have done a pretty good job with the production of Dedalo's, tho' we'd have preferred sturdier cardboard tiles. A big plus tho' is that the rules are clear enough for Dedalo's to be played as a family game.