Malefiz — sold in English as Barricade — is a race game with one very good idea in it. Getting a pawn to the top of the board is easy enough. Getting past the eleven black barricades in the way is not, because a barricade cannot be jumped. To pass one you have to land on it exactly — and then you pick it up and put it down again wherever you like.
That is the whole game. Every barricade you take is a barricade you can drop across somebody else's road, or on the square in front of their home, shutting them in until they roll their way out. Nothing is safe and nobody is ahead for long.
HOW TO PLAY
Roll the dice and move one pawn that many squares along the printed track, up, down or sideways. Land on an opponent and they go straight back to their home base, however far they had come. Land on a barricade and you take it. First pawn to the red square at the top wins.
Tap a pawn and every square it can reach lights up, so you can see the move before you commit to it — and the pawn travels the squares it actually walked, not a straight line, so you can follow the count.
FOUR WAYS TO PLAY
• Against the computer — one, two or three opponents, free and without limits
• Round one screen — pass the iPhone or iPad between two, three or four people
• Against other iPhones, iPads and Macs nearby — no account, no internet, no sign-in
• Join a game somebody else has started
ON IPHONE, IPAD AND MAC
One purchase covers all three. The board is drawn rather than photographed, so it is sharp on every display, and the layout follows the glass: the players sit beside the board when there is room and underneath when there is not. On a phone the board can be drawn larger than the screen and pushed about, so a pawn is still something you can tap. Light and dark, English, French and Spanish.
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
No ads. No sign-in. No account. No subscription. No data leaves your device. Games between devices happen over your own Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and go nowhere near a server.
ABOUT THE PURCHASE
The game is free against the computer — the real board, the real rules, the same opponent that shipped in 2010, all four seats and every setting. One optional purchase adds the other people: more than one human player on this device, and games against other iPhones, iPads and Macs nearby. Bought once, no subscription, covers iPhone, iPad and Mac, and shareable with your family.
Malefiz was invented by Werner Schöppner and first published by Ravensburger in 1960. This version was written by Philippe Guillaud; the board, the rules and the computer opponent are the ones from the original 2010 release, carried across move for move.
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