Description

Subtitled "Mit Spaß und Fantasie durchs Moor", this is a game published as part of the Expo 2000 campaign "Das Tote Moor soll leben" ("The Dead Moor Is To Live Again") to promote restoration of the Dead Moor area near Hannover, a historic peat stripping site. In addition to the rules of the game, the rulebook contains information on the biotopes, wildlife, history, archaeology and folklore of the moor, although the game itself is not of an overtly educational nature. Max Moorfrosch, the project mascot, also makes an appearance as a joker tile in the game.

The game is set in medieval times and is played on a board of hexagonal spaces representing the moor. Village tiles are placed on the perimeter, and a peat-mining tile is placed in the middle. By placing log road tiles, players race to connect their two villages with a causeway passing through the peat-mining site, and the first player or team to complete this connection wins the game.

Before each turn, a card is turned over to reveal the advice of the village elders, which may involve missing a turn due to bad weather, being restricted to playing a certain type of tile that turn due to a mishap, getting a double placement due to good weather, or some such. Obstacle tiles are also encountered on the board face down, and mostly have to simply be built around, although some when approached and turned up may also offer an opportunity to place a bridge directly across, or require expenditure of special resources (like an offering for the sacrificial site and using torch-lit roads to keep away the ghosts), or even provide the magical power of the Golden Helm to ward off hazards.

The game contains rules for one, two or four players; in the latter case, two players make up a team with partially shared resources, each joining up their village with the peat tile instead of working from one village to the other. There are also suggestions for any number of players to cooperate as one team or compete as two.