Keys to the Castle
- Board's Eye View
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Designed by Michael Adams, William Foster, Eric Foster and Alex Foster, with art by Alex Foster and Ellagrin, Keys to the Castle is a light family and children's tile-flipping card game from Outset where the 2-4 players are trying to be the first to unlock a path and move their character from one side to the other.
The game is played on a grid laid out with coloured door tiles. These mostly show open doors on their flip side but some show barred doorways or have other effects. Players each have a hand of three cards and, on your turn, you draw a card and you must play a card from your hand. Coloured key cards unlock the corresponding colour door, and ideally you'll be able to unlock the door orthogonally ahead of you and, if it's an open door, move your character forward. There are hacksaw cards that can be used to open up barred doorways, and 'secret passage' cards that create a link between two diagonally adjacent cards, tho' when you create a link or open up a path, it's available too for use by other players... There's a small 'take that' element: there are some 'miss a turn' cards that can be played on opponents and the deck includes 'padlock' cards that a player can place in another player's path, tho' these can always be removed with a skeleton key card.
Keys to the Castle makes for an entertaining, family-friendly game that will typically play in around 15-20 minutes. It can be played with pre-schoolers to reinforce colour recognition, but younger players may need help with those cards and tiles that incorporate printed text.