I bought this game and a group of 6 others for three nieces aged 9, 11 and 15 that I don't see more than twice a year. Shadows in the Forest was given specifically to the youngest. My husband and I celebrated early Christmas with them Thursday night Dec 20th with their parents blessings on our way through their town to spend Christmas with our daughter. After all of the presents were opened, the little one asked to play her game first before they went to bed. The game was a TOTAL HIT with ALL three of them, their mother included! Husband was the "rules reader" and teacher, and all 6 of us played this game about five times before kids reluctantly went to bed. My one initial concern when gifting this game was whether the cooperation would devolve into squabbling and unhappy people, but the game concept looked like so much fun that I bought it anyway. Not so, normally bickering siblings came together in the most wonderful and heart-warming way. The game itself is lovely. The board is pretty, and has stone paths meandering around the outside edge of the board and the nine hollows where the slotted heavy cardboard trees are placed in the set up. One player is the seeker, and closes their eyes while the other players hide their pawns behind the trees IN A TOTALLY DARK ROOM! The only light comes from an adorable little watch-battery powered plastic lantern and a glow in the dark die. The goal is for all of the pawns to collect as soon as they can behind one tree without getting caught in the lantern's light, either by the seeker, or by the honor method while moving amongst the trees. If that happens, then the entire group of pawns wins! If a pawn IS caught, then any player removes the white plastic mask that pegs into each tiny black pawn and passes it to a spot in front of the seeker. If the seeker can find all of the pawns and collect their masks while moving around the board, then the seeker wins. Discovered pawns are immediately frozen in place, but can win back their masks if another pawn can sneak back undiscovered and stay with the frozen pawn one full turn, but they usually had to stay longer to avoid the moving lantern light. Everyone loved it, including the 15 yr old who wants to work a deal with her littlest sister to take it to a future slumber party. I hear that this game is a lot like an outdoor game called freeze tag, which I never played, but I do remember playing hide and seek, where if you were caught you were out. I enjoyed the game myself because the board game graphics + the lantern light reminded me of playing outside at night in the mysterious tree-shadows out in the yard. Just the experience of watching the shadows change amongst the trees on the board was nostalgic and captivating. I think that the girls loved the game because they won together. Cooperative play is unusual for them, and they seemed to relish that as well as the exaggerated finger-pointing and stage whispers they used to communicate to herd the pawns together. You think as a seeker that YOU are clever enough to hear the pawns tap or slide along the board (you CANNOT fly them over trees), but NO, it is not so easy. As a seeker I heard clues, kept the game going for a long time and found a few pawns, but they were able to buddy-up and re-mask, but finally everyone had to go to bed, so we all called the game a draw. I'm not sure if this is a rule, but we decided to play that on the first turn each pawn had to hide behind a different tree, because we beat the seeker in two turns grouping up like that, and the girls themselves seemed to like to prolong the game play/cooperation OVER WINNING. What a great game! We all had a wonderful time, and to me it seemed especially poetic to play it yesterday (yet again) on the shortest day of the year.
