Friends! You must go
buy two (2) copies of this award-winning game SHADOWS IN THE FOREST!
Get one for your family and one for a friend. Here are three (3)
reasons why...
First, my family
helped bring it to the United States!
Second, our game
designer friend Josh’s company, ThinkFun, makes it. (They also make
Rush Hour, Roller Coaster Challenge, Gravity Maze, Laser Chess, and
many other super fun puzzle games that make you think.)
Third, it’s the
most fun board game you can play in the dark.
You can find Shadows in the Forest at Target in the game section, Barnes & Noble, on
ThinkFun’s website, and in Colorado at Jax Outdoor Goods, Into the
Wind, and in other game stores and gift shops. And online, obviously.
At this time, you
might have some questions. Let’s start at the beginning…
Maybe five years
ago, I was looking for a cooperative board game to give to our family
for Christmas. We had just discovered our first cooperative game,
Hoot, Owl, Hoot! and thought it was fun. So I was scouring the
internet looking for a new game when I stumbled across a game that
had little trees and a candle that you played with in the dark. It
was called Waldschattenspiel, which loosely translates from German to
“Shadows in the Forest”. The idea was that you placed trees
around a board, turned out all the lights, lit a candle, and placed
these little gnomey/elfy guys in the shadows behind the trees. The
candle was a hunter whose “lantern” would freeze the elves like
deer in the headlights as he walked around the forest. The gnomes
could only travel through the shadows to escape the hunter. I thought
that was a cool idea and potentially a great game to play after
sunset while car camping or backpacking. Problem was, the original
game was created in the ‘70s and was only distributed minimally to
the U.S. I tried a couple times to buy it from online used game
stores and kept having my orders cancelled.
I decided to make
it. I went to Hobby Lobby, bought some fabric, some paint, balsa
wood, spray paint, some air-dry clay, and some tea light candles. I
found a photo of the original Waldschattenspiel game board and
recreated the shapes on my fabric playing board. Hours and weeks
later, I had a working game that looked kinda cool (and which also
rolled up and weighed about a quarter pound for backpacking). In the
photo on this post, you can see our handmade version on the left and
ThinkFun’s professional version on the right.
Late on Christmas
Day 2016, I would venture to say Erin was charmed and the boys were
delighted to play a candlelight game in the dark. It was a hit!
A few months later,
it was time for our Annual Ski Trip with college friends. One of the
original Ski Trippers is our friend Julie, whose husband Josh is a
game designer for ThinkFun. Over the years, it’s become a tradition
for Josh to bring prototype games from work to the Ski Trip to test
out on us and get our feedback. So naturally, I brought along our
homemade Shadows in the Forest to show Josh. (Quick aside: This is
not the only game the Ski Trip has created. Some of you may have
painful memories of “MegaBowl”.)
At first, I would
say most people were less excited about the game than we were because
the strategies of the game take a little time to reveal themselves.
But after a few rounds, Josh changed from quiet (a state he is rarely
in!) to inquisitive; the questions started flowing like this: “Sooo…
have you played it with more elves?” Yes, yes we had. “And what
if the hunter places the lantern first?” Yeah, we tried that, too.
You could see his gears whirring. He started taking pictures.
A few months later
Josh told us that ThinkFun tracked down the original inventor of the
game in Germany. Games are copyrighted just like books, so in order
to bring the game to the U.S., Josh had to travel to Germany to meet
the inventor Walter Kraul (and his family) in his little cottage
where he is still making games by hand.
Long story over: This fall, ThinkFun has brought Shadows in the Forest back from obscurity for you and your family and friends to enjoy this holiday season and perhaps while you are car camping.
When you play the game, think of us... and look us up in the rule book!
Long story over: This fall, ThinkFun has brought Shadows in the Forest back from obscurity for you and your family and friends to enjoy this holiday season and perhaps while you are car camping.
When you play the game, think of us... and look us up in the rule book!
