Carcassonne Labyrinth is a daring board game crossover, but the fun gets lost in the maze

Carcassonne Labyrinth is the most ambitious crossover since Batman fought Superman. At least, it is if you care about board games. Both Carcassonne and Labyrinth separately introduced thousands to the hobby, and they hold special places in many hearts.

Publisher Ravensburger's plan to combine them was certainly daring. How could two of history's greatest gateway games, each refined by their respective designer, mesh together? Would this Frankenstein even be playable?

After several tests of my review copy, I have the answers. Carcassonne Labyrinth is perfectly playable. The two disparate rules blend surprisingly seamlessly. The end result is light, snappy, and entertaining - for a time. I'd call the merger a success, but it just doesn't excite me.

This is a game where you're playing two simultaneous games of Carcassonne and Labyrinth. When your turn begins, you draw a Carcassonne tile and push it into a square on Labyrinth's shifting game board. The tile you push out of play becomes part of your expanding Carcassonne landscape, with roads and cities lined up as normal.

You'll also move a meeple around the board on your turn. The goal here, as in Labyrinth, is to reach a square depicting a specific treasure icon. The icon you're after is decided by your current face-up treasure tile. These function like the treasure cards of Labyrinth, but they're also Carcassonne tiles. When you successfully reach your intended treasure, you place said tile in your landscape as an additional freebie.

Carcassonne Labyrinth is far simpler than its two origin games. The Labyrinth board has fewer moving rows and columns, and acquiring treasure feels noticeably easier. On the Carcassonne side, you have no disputes over land, because everyone is building their own private empire.

Plus, there are no points to score. When you finish a city or road, it doesn't mean jack unless your chosen tiles show shield or treasure symbols. If they do, you gain these symbols from the supply and place them on your map.

More advanced variants include optional quests that net you extra shield tokens for jumping through the right hoops. That might mean building cities and roads of specific sizes or taking unique movement actions on the board. These aren't recommended for your first game, but I'd argue an older audience can waive that guidance.

You might be wondering how you win Carcassonne Labyrinth without points. Ravensburger's chosen scoring system is an unusual one. After 10 turns, you'll run out of tiles to place (regardless of player count). Everyone then piles their personal stash of tiles and tokens into a tower.

Your meeple also sits on top of the tower, unless you complete Carcassonne Labyrinth's primary quest. In the base game, there's a bonus for collecting the most shield tokens. Do this, and you can place a meeple crown instead of your meeple - making the tower slightly taller! Tallest tower wins.

It's a tactile, rather charming way to declare a winner. However, the flimsiness of the tokens make it fiddlier than it should be. Plus, several of the players I tested it with mentioned that they missed the points-scoring of Carcassonne senior.

I'm inclined to agree. Carcassonne Labyrinth is an easygoing time, but it lacks the bite that makes its siblings special.

When I think of Carcassonne, a longtime favorite of mine, I remember its delightful passive-aggression. The game's at its best when you're elbowing your friends out of an increasingly crowded space to claw yourself forward on the points track.

Labyrinth, similarly, is loved for its challenge. There's an art to solving its winding maze, especially when rival players keep getting in your way. Carcassonne Labyrinth represents this slightly better, but my testing team's most experienced Labyrinth player wasn't overly impressed. We both left the table wishing to play our respective favorites rather than this watered-down go-between.

I think a lot of the problem is down to luck. Both original games involve some element of it, but there was enough player agency to give you some sense of control. Carcassonne players can't control the tiles they draw, but they can decide whether or not to invest meeples in a particular structure.

Labyrinth players start with an entirely randomized board and a random treasure card, but with only one extra piece being pushed in and out at a time, the board state is stable enough to strategize around.

Carcassonne Labyrinth presents a constantly changing board. Luckily, it's much easier to traverse thanks to the influx of new roads - but that diminishes the fun of actually solving the maze. Meanwhile, the Carcassonne section has been defanged by a total lack of player interaction. The only decisions you make on that front are which tiles to push out and add to your pool - which will be limited by the labyrinth paths you want to take.

In theory, juggling both objectives should make this an even more satisfying puzzle box. Instead, it turned me into a passive player. At times, Carcassonne Labyrinth felt like a game that was happening to me, rather than one I was influencing.

Things are simply too procedural. There will always be 10 turns. There are no dramatic moments where someone secures a clear lead or performs a crushing misplay. The board is ever-changing, so you have few reasons to plan ahead. Every turn is just solving the simple puzzle placed in front of you. Rinse and repeat.

Things felt better when the advanced goals gave me something to work towards long-term (other than just 'most shields'). But even after those games, I wasn't eager to play again.

Carcassonne Labyrinth only asks 30 minutes of your time, and that rescues it somewhat. It's a chilled out gateway game that'd suit young or inexperienced gamers down to the ground.

But it's not a gateway that showcases what the best board games of the modern day can do. It's not going to see the repeat plays I dedicated to Carcassonne in yesteryear. Its older siblings revolutionized the hobby, but Carcassonne Labyrinth simply has no interest in innovating.

Want to share your own board game stories? I'm always keen to hear what people get to their table over in the Wargamer Discord.

A review copy was provided by the publisher.