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Elfenland is a classic family game from Alan Moon, designer of Ticket to Ride, and like TTR, it won the coveted Spiel des Jahres Award in 1998.

At first glance, Elfenland looks like a kiddie game, likely due to the whimsical fantasy artwork by Doris Matthaus. But in reality it’s a light strategy game of planning and travel that’s been enjoyed by families for a decade.

Overview of gameplay

In Elfenland, 2-6 players compete to visit the most towns in the land of the elves. The board depicts the colorful Elfenland, with the starting city of Elvenhold and the 20 towns to be visited. The towns are connected by roads which traverse various kinds of terrain: plains, forests, desert, and mountains. Some are connected by river or across a lake.

Players each place a town marker of their color in each town and place their playing piece, in the shape of a large boot, in Elvenhold. They then draw 8 travel cards and 5 transportation counters. These depict one of the seven types of travel possible: elfcycle (a bicycle with a sail), troll wagon (a wagon pulled by a bearded troll), giant pig, unicorn, magic cloud, dragon, and raft. Each player also starts with one obstacle counter which they can use once per game.

Players take turns placing transport counters on roads, only one counter allowed per road. This means that in order to pass through that road you must play travel cards of the same type as the counter. In addition, some types of travel are more difficult over certain terrain. For example: you need to play two troll wagon cards to use a desert road. During this phase, you can also use your obstacle counter by placing it next to an existing transportation counter. This means it takes one more card of the appropriate type to use that road.

Traveling by water works differently. There are no counters for rafts; they only appear on cards. You play one raft card to travel downstream and two cards to travel upstream. To cross a lake, you play three raft cards.

After placing counters, players then play travel cards and move their boot through as many towns as they can, picking up their town markers as they go. When everyone is done, all transportation counters are removed and cards are replenished.

This whole process is repeated three more times and at the end, the player who visited the most towns wins. In the event of a tie, the player with the most cards left in hand wins. In the unlikely event that a player visits all 20 towns before the fourth round, he/she automatically wins.

There is also an interesting variant. Each player is dealt a secret card depicting one of the 20 towns. The goal is to end the game with your boot at that town. For every step you end up away from the target town you subtract 1 point from your final score.

My take

Elfenland has all the characteristics of a good gateway game: simple rules, attractive components, high interaction, and both short-term and long-term planning.

The interaction comes in the form of interdependency. Since you only have five transportation counters to use per round, you should try to make use of those placed by other players to travel as far as possible and maximize your hand of travel cards. Conversely, there’s a ‘take that’ and ‘gang up on the leader’ element in that you can place obstacles or unfavorable counters in the path of the leading players.

However, because of this interaction, the game is best with at least 4 players as the board is too wide open with less. On the other hand, 6-player games work well but can also drag especially with slow players. It probably works best with 5.

Strangely enough, I’ve never played with the secret town objective variant, since I’ve always taught it to new players. I expect it to add an interesting element to the planning.

Overall, I think Elfenland is a good light strategy game that casual players can enjoy. It’s easy enough for older kids and nongamers to understand and has enough planning so even enthusiasts will exercise their thinking muscles. The theme is also very friendly.

I rate Elfenland a 7 out of 10.

Pros: Good family game; easy to learn; high interaction; attractive art and components

Cons: Not very good with less than 4 players; can drag with 6 players