Ho well, maybe this is the first step to getting him playing something a little more interesting at least. I'm hoping to persuade him that it would be better if each player started with five cards but he's not having any of it. Having said that, Sprog1 (8) totally loves the game. Sometimes the other players can rush to catch up, other times there's no real hope and it's merely a case of plodding on until the player with the dragons finally throws a flipping 1. Sadly, as soon as someone has three dragons, they tend to fly straight to the Island of Winged Serpents and they're stuck doing nothing other than rolling the dice each turn until they get the exact number required. This is where the game really takes off, with vindictive use of spells and desperate pleas to trade. Of course, everyone tends to reach that point at roughly the same time and there's a frantic scramble for dragons. Since each player only starts with one card and landing on spaces to obtain more is a matter of luck, it can take twenty minutes of dice rolling and laborious counting to accumulate enough resources to achieve anything. Unfortunately, not by as much as you might expect. Any child who can reliably and quickly count eleven spaces on a board can join in.Ĭomments: Playing this certainly beats Snakes and Ladders. This does mean, though, that children don't have to be able to read particularly well to play once they've seen the game in action a couple of times and have picked up what's going on. The spell cards don't have any instructions on them, making the game slightly confusing to begin with because everyone has to memorise their effects or keep checking the rule book. This doesn't knacker the game completely but does make it less fun.Īge: 8+. Playing with 2 players, meanwhile, essentially nullifies the possibility of trading and means that Confusion spells (which shuffle the opposing players' cards) are pointless. This being the case, playing with more than 4 players is asking for tedious stalemate. Remember, however, that there are only nine dragons, three are required to win and there are only two cards in the deck that allow dragons to be stolen. Game length: Around 45 minutes to an hour for a three player game. Object: First player to the Dragon's Eye wins. At this point they become immune to attacks and merely need to travel exactly seven more spaces to reach the Dragon's Eye. Once a player has three dragons they must travel to the Island of Winged Serpents in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Players may also trade cards rather than taking a normal turn. If a player lands on the same space as another player, they may gamble cards in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The two Master Claw spells enable a player to purloin someone else's dragon by taking a matching piece of knowledge to the dragon's home. Some Bit of Knowledge cards feature spells to do such things as steal other player's cards or take an extra go.

Rolling the dragon's eye on the dice grants immediate travel to the home of a dragon of their choice. Land, sea and air transport tickets allow players to travel across a continent, along an ocean route or to anywhere on the board, respectively. Once they have three cards featuring information about the same type of dragon (or two specific cards and a wild card), they can go to that dragon's home square and claim it. Gameplay: Players roll the dice in order to move across the board, choosing their path round the world in order to collect 'Bits of Knowledge' and travel tickets. A very fiddly storage tray that's designed to show off the figures in the shop more than anything else.15 painted plastic figures (6 people, 9 dragons).

Dragonology board game rules