Nicolas Poncin's Medieval Academy first appeared a decade ago in an edition published by Blue Cocker Games and IELLO. It's a light card drafting game for 2-5 players where each card you play gives you movement along the matching colour track. Each track scores differently, either rewarding the players in the lead on a track or penalising those lagging behind, and only three sets of track score in all six rounds.
Blue Cocker have brought the game back in a revised edition. Tho' the cartoon art of the original was generally well received, this new edition has all new art from Antoine Lanau. Also new are components and rules devised by Alexia Allard to facilitate solitaire play. There are a couple of other minor tweaks but this is otherwise the same game, but it has a very different look - and not just because of the new artwork.
The original version of Medieval Academy had the tracks on double-sided cards, providing, in effect, a small modular board where players could mix and match the different versions of each track. This new edition replaces the cards with a large double-sided board. On the plus side, a full-sized board has more table presence and feels more satisfying to play on. The downside is that you can no longer mix and match which tracks to use: you either play on the 'easy' day side of the board, with simpler track scoring, or you flip the board to its night side with its slightly more complicated scoring on all the tracks.
This new version replaces the plain wooden discs of the original with wooden pieces that match each player's symbol. It also replaces the fiddly cardboard victory point tokens with individual scoring dials: another feature which gives this edition a more streamlined look.
The original version of Medieval Academy worked well as a light family game, as a fun filler and as an easy-to-play gateway game for players coming fresh to what to some can seem like an initially strange notion of 'pass the parcel' card drafting. Tho' some will mourn the loss of Pierre 'Piero' Lechevalier's cartoon art, the dials, new player markers and 'proper' board will for most add to this game's appeal. We reckon we'll still be playing it in another 10 years.