As an English teacher and long-established Shakespeare geek, I was over the moon to receive a copy of ‘The Shakespeare Game’ from Orion Books for review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.
This is an absolutely beautiful game by Laurence King Publishing, an imprint of Orion Books that I’d come across before because of their gorgeous literary jigsaws – I’ll post links at the end, because true literature fans will need this game AND the excellent Shakespeare/Jane Austen/Sherlock Holmes/Dracula jigsaws too!
My first impression is that this is a high-quality and well-designed game – the board is appealingly illustrated by Adam Simpson (also responsible for at least some of the jigsaws). We have Shakespeare’s London centre-stage, with a host of theatres and other locations (for example, the Bear Pit, Shakespeare’s Rooms, The Tower of London) that form the spaces on the board to move around.
The playing pieces and cards are also well-made, although I wished a bit that some of the tokens weren’t so tiny – this is definitely one to keep well away from small children if you want to retain all the bits. All the playing pieces are cardboard – great from a sustainability perspective, but I’m not sure how long they will stay pristine.
The rule book directs you to a short video to explain game play…but I’m impatient so we just got on with it! I did check out the video later but I don’t think we went too far astray without it.
Essentially, players have to choose an entry into Shakespeare’s London (e.g. seek a patron, be a schoolmaster, be caught poaching and flee town – all very authentic options for a young Shakespeare). Once you get into the big city, you move around collecting Performance Cards which allow you to stage plays. The number of cards, venues and whether you’re the first to use that theatre all equate to different levels of profit. Winners need to make £120 or stage a (tricky to co-ordinate) 7-card performance so that they can retire happily to New Place in the footsteps of the great man himself.
The game is recommended for 2-5 players from the age of 8 upwards. There is a kind of additional level of Shakespeare-geekery in the shape of Fortune Cards which have some tasks included – depending on your fellow players’ levels of Shakespeare knowledge, you can adjust these, give hints or dispense of the tasks altogether. I played with one other adult (not a Shakespeare fan), a 14 and an 11 year old – so we skipped the tasks.
Once we got going, everyone enjoyed the game – there are some fun frustrations with Fortune Cards and the fiendish rule about how many cards you can hold at one time. There’s definitely a strategy to this – but I didn’t master it and my 14 year-old won hands down. Repeatedly.
This is definitely a game we’ll come back to again and again – my kids both have asked to play it again since the first (epic) session. I’m still no closer to working out the winning strategy, sadly.
It’s worth mentioning that the rule book has some really interesting information in it – there’s a kind of beginner’s guide to the locations, themes and plays included which, while not needed to play the game, are a welcome addition.
This would make a great present for any Shakespeare fan – and they won’t have to find other Shakespeare aficionados to play with as it is very accessible. Highly recommended, even if you will end up falling out with family members who have beaten you to the Ophelia card or cut your performance takings for all comedies!
If you’d like to buy a copy of this great game, my affiliate link is here. Thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.
As promised, here are affiliate links to the brilliant literary jigsaws from the same publisher (and often the same illustrator). This series seems to be ever-growing (I can’t do the jigsaws fast enough) so I’ve just linked a few of my favourites:
https://amzn.to/3RHESP5 (Jane Austen)
https://amzn.to/3REnJ8R (Sherlock Holmes)
https://amzn.to/3RKtylj (Dracula)
In just looking for the links for these, I’ve spotted a Charles Dickens one, James Joyce, Alice in Wonderland, the Brontes, Agatha Christie…I need to update my own Christmas list!
This looks like so much fun! 😍
Oh, wow, I need this for my homeschool Shakespeare unit!
Ahh, it would be ideal for that 😀