Lairs
By Kids Table Board Gaming
We’re starting right into it, as I’ve been psyched to review this one - both for its theme, and to get it off the “stack of shame,” that tower of games still in the shrinkwrap that I need to play.
Lairs is a two-player game where you are hopeful adventurers, competing for the last license and spot in the Adventurer’s Guild this year. The competition is to build a dungeon with monsters, traps, and treasures that your opponent must race through, while also successfully navigating the dungeon your opponent designed!
There is an expansion called Lairs: Deeper Dungeons that adds a bunch of different dungeon stuff like new monsters and traps, as well as rules and components to play with 3 or 4 players. The base game of Lairs feels GREAT as a two-player game, so I haven’t jumped on that expansion yet.
Lairs plays with big Battleship vibes in that you’re hiding behind a screen laying out what your opponent is going to have to deal with and hunt for. This is a Good Vibe to me, as I had the same fun I did playing games like this as a young nerd child.
The game also succeeds at one of my favorite things: game mechanics matching the theme and story of the game. The map you draw as you discover the layout of your opponent’s map feels like the map you would draw as an adventurer. And the dungeon you build looks like the scale model a dungeon designer would build for themselves. It's always fun to feel like you’re in the game you’re playing.
There is a Bad Vibe, or at least a Not as Good Vibe, and that’s the fact that the base game is VERY base. There are obvious spots where you’ll add rules if you buy the expansions, and even a mention in the rulebook explaining you’ll read things that don’t make sense in the base game, and that they’re for expansions as well. It didn’t feel good to know there was gameplay held back, or at least knowing how much was held back. That, combined with the lack of flavor to both the traps and monsters, made some gameplay feel a little bland.
Overall Vibes: Good Vibes! I still suggest Lairs as a great two-player game, especially as a two-player competitive game. It feels great to navigate your opponent’s dungeon, AND it feels great when they fall into your traps.
