Super Mario Labyrinth

The floor moves. That is the whole game, and it has been working since 1986.

Ravensburger's Labyrinth is one of those designs that has outlived nearly everything released alongside it, and this is the Mushroom Kingdom wearing it. The board is a grid of corridor tiles with one spare, and on your turn you shove that spare into a row or column, sliding the whole line along and rearranging the maze under everyone's feet. Then you walk as far as the corridors now allow, hunting whichever Mario character or item your card has told you to find.

The cruelty is that the shift is public and permanent. Opening a clean run to your own target also opens it to whoever is sitting opposite, and closing someone else off usually means closing yourself off a turn later. Children pick the rule up in about ninety seconds and then spend the rest of the game being considerably more ruthless than the adults. Twenty to thirty minutes, which is about right before someone knocks the board.

Perfect for: Families who have discovered that the seven-year-old is better at spatial reasoning than either parent and have not yet made peace with it.

2-4 players | 20-30 minutes | Age 7+