Licht und Schatten 1990

Theme: The game has a fairy tale background story in which the young queen of the prosperous and happy "Sonnenland" ("Sunvale" in the English description) was flattered and seduced by her shadow via her dreams to tear apart her necklace of sun pearls. As she did so, the shadow became independent and ruled over the land, drainig life and colors from it. An old bard's song tells her that she needs to cross the country, aided by some companions (the players). So, it is a heroic prophesy fairy tale of saving a cursed land.

Goal: The game is semi - co - operative as the players share the goal of moving the queen from one corner of the board to the opposite corner. And all players lose if the shadow lands on the same tile as any other piece or if a player can't pay sun pearls when required by the game. However, players can give each other pearls at any time If the queen reaches the corner, all players are considered winners, but the player with the most pearls is considered the most successful.

Gameplay: The game is played on a modular board made up of 5 x 5 tiles which are turned upside down and upside up during play. Players take turns. During a turn, two special dice are thrown to determine the movement of pieces on the board: depending on the result, either the player moves their figure and the shadow in opposing directions or the players get a chance to move the queen one tile towards the goal. In order to move the queen, players draw a task card asking them for some kind of word (e.g. "name a tool") the letters of which are restricted by the current state of the tiles on the board using an hour glass as a time limit. The task cards come in three levels of difficulty.

The game has a strong element of luck as an unfortunate die roll can easily cause the players to lose with no means of direct protection against it. Player decision/influence is limited to the word game and deciding the path the queen figure takes (although that is also restricted so as to forbid detours).

Important: While the game comes with a 4 - language rules booklet, the task cards are monolingual in German, so at least one person needs to be able to understand that language. In addition, the background story is simplified in the translations and the element of the player with the most sun pearls at the end of the game being the most successful is missing.