While not encountering various characters, creatures, and events from mythology, players are also attempting to reach a destination dealt out at the beginning of the game. When a player reaches their assigned location, they can take a peak at where one of the magic jewels is being held- there’s only one out at a time, so it is effectively a race to get the clue and then to where the jewel is actually hidden. Once a player manages to get the jewel, they have to take it to one of five sanctuary locations to effectively “bank” it and receive some experience points in the shape of stats increases or money. Once a player has recovered three jewels, they win. If only it were that easy.

There’s also a pronounced player-versus-player element that takes the game from being a frivolous fantasy romp to being something potentially very nasty and cutthroat in the best tradition of TALISMAN. Players can and will fight each other, particularly when one has a jewel and another does not. Jewels can be stolen through combat, and there is also a stack of particularly evil action cards that can do some crazy, hateful things to opponents. Interaction is high due to the race element and the ability to interfere with the best laid plans of others, and I think as a whole the game comes across as more violent than TALISMAN.

But that could also be because the game is about half as long as a game of TALISMAN. It seems to be a thirty minute per player game. I’ve only played with three players, but I’d be comfortable playing it with up to the maximum six- beyond three hours though, and I think the game would wear out its welcome. It is a very random, very luck-based game although route planning and judicious use of time and resources is rewarded more so than in many other adventure games that rely on random encounters and dice-based resolutions.

The game is hugely fun and I think that only a fun-murdering sourpuss would pick nits about the possibility that a player could turn up a clue that’s just a few spaces away from a jewel or that the action cards can cause some pretty wild swings of fate. I also appreciate that it’s an old-fashioned kind of fun that we don’t see a lot in game design any more. It feels dated in the best possible way, it feels reckless and carefree and totally not concerned with what the popular opinions on board game design happens to be this week. MYTHGARDIA is like playing some classic title from the heyday of adventure gaming that somehow you missed. Only we all missed it, because Mr. Harris never released it until now.

And that is really the problem with MYTHGARDIA. With only 100 copies out there, the odds are probably pretty great as of this writing that you will not see a copy of the game in person unless you know someone who has it or happen to run into someone at a game event with one. Its exclusivity is practically a fatal fault since the game can not possibly find an audience with so few copies in circulation. The expensiveness of the game is also a point of critical failure, particularly since it is practically homemade and sadly that just doesn’t cut it in today’s board games marketplace. The production is bare bones and amateur to phrase it optimistically, but unprofessional and disappointing to be honest. It’s hard to justify, in today’s day and age where desktop publishing can produce truly professional results, a game that ships with a paper map that literally looks like it was drawn with crayons and crude artwork that I can’t imagine will appeal to anyone beyond the friends and family of the artist.