“The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game” (2020) was designed by Ryan Miller with art by Medusa Dollmaker and Lucas Torquato and was published by Ravensburger. This is probably the weirdest game I’ve yet reviewed, so strap yourselves in.
The game book has some very interesting mechanics upfront. I think the first is obvious: “What exactly is a book game?” Essentially, it’s one of those cardboard picture books you’d get as a kid, but big enough that each spread functions as a game board. Now, I kind of like this. Even in other situations, I could see this conceptually as something with a lot of promise. For instance, for games like “Monopoly” or “Ticket to Ride” where different editions are primarily differentiated by different game boards, an adapted version of this could work well to merge multiple editions. But it’s an unusual format.
That’s not the only weird piece about this. For instance, it’s rated as a 1-4 player game. However, on the very first board spread, only Westley is actually “playable,” in the sense that his actions can be manipulated by the players (a player character, or PC). Buttercup is also seen in that spread, but only as a non-player character (NPC).
Depending on the spread, Westley, Buttercup, Inigo Montoya, Fezzik, Vizzini, Prince Humperdinck, and Count Rugen all appear as PCs and NPCs. Conceptually, as a matter of adapting the movie The Princess Bride (1987), I understand this decision. It’s so that, in different spreads, you only have the relevant characters to the “scene” that the game is meant to be adapting. There is probably actually an interesting analysis about what this shows about narrative agency as well, given some of the characters can be changed to NPCs who only react procedurally in certain scenes. That said, as a playable game, it’s a bit of a weird choice. On the very first spread, you only have one character that up to four players are collaboratively “playing as.”
Each spread also has very different rules for how you progress past it. This is most of why I’m not going to waste my time trying to describe the mechanics of this game – they’re too fluid for that to be a worthwhile discussion. There are only a few consistencies in gameplay throughout. First, it is possible that the procedurally generated NPC turn could win a certain spread, i.e. achieve certain conditions before the PCs meet theirs. Second, if you fail a spread, you get one more chance to pass it, or you lose the game (in the lore of the story, the grandson gets bored and won’t stop interrupting you from telling it).
Also, I want to be clear that when I describe the NPC turn as “procedurally generated,” I’m being a bit lost, but it’s far from a false analogy. Depending on a random number card that is pulled, NPCs might move closer to PCs on preset paths, new challenges might be generated to be cleared off, or Buttercup might fall into a sand trap. Each number card represents a specific set of actions to be completed on behalf of the NPCs. That is, in its most basic form, a method of algorithmic generation with randomized elements.
So let’s see. We have a game that’s broken into certain levels (spreads) with progressively difficult and variable win conditions that you need to pass consecutively and with little tolerance for failure (the grandson reset) where you play as different characters with specific actions that they can take while being opposed by a set of procedurally generated enemies. That’s essentially a rogue-like video game. In trying to adapt The Princess Bride into a board game, Ravensburger accidentally created a physical interpretation of a rogue-like video game.
In researching for this article, it turns out this isn’t even their only game like this. They also have similar “adventure book game[s]” for at least The Lord of the Rings movie series and The Wizard of Oz (1939). And all of them are buried in their catalog behind pages of Disney character-matching games. It absolutely baffles me that a company most well-known for its puzzles put out multiple physical rogue-like adaptations of classic movies. The only other physical games I can think of that even maybe fit the bill are a couple of multi-stage deck-builders, and I’m not even sure that those fully count. These are genuinely the only games I’ve encountered like this, and it’s wild.
That said, I do want to stress that this is not a typical board game, in even the most generous sense of the term. This is a very experimental format, and you need to know that going into it. Most negative viewpoints I’ve seen of it – whether in online reviews or from people I’ve played with in person – seem to expect something more akin to modern versions of “The Game of Life” (like the 2013 version), but with theming to The Princess Bride. I enjoyed this game. I had a blast. But you do need to embrace that, whatever your idea of a board game is, this just isn’t that. It’s not an enjoyable experience otherwise.
Who would I recommend this game for? This is a fairly good adaptation of The Princess Bride, so if you’re a fan who wants to live out their favorite movie, I would recommend it. I’d recommend it for any passionate board game nerd who wants to try a very unique format. It does work well as a multi-player game surprisingly enough, so they might be good for families. For any people doing media studies out there, this game is a fascinating case study in narrative agency. And yes – I would also recommend it to people who like narrative-driven rogue-likes and want to try a physical version. Regardless of why you are interested, I would recommend that you be at least familiar with The Princess Bride, as otherwise you will probably get very confused.