In the new card game Disney Shadowed Kingdom, players must dispel shadows and bring back the magic. Through a two-player, cooperative card game, players team up with each other and their favorite Disney heroes to put the kingdom back to rights. The concept is great, but unfortunately, the execution isn't so solid.
Disney Shadowed Kingdom comes with a board to track the progression of shadow and magic in the game, six character cards, two game trackers, a rulebook and the game cards. Each character card comes with a unique ability that gets activated with a certain location card.
The goal of the game is to increase the magic marker to the highest point, while simultaneously avoiding the shadow marker reaching that same point. When setting up the game, players shuffle the cards, make a 2x2 grid of cards that are face down, then deal out the rest. Players can only have two cards in their hand at a time.
There are only two moves players can make. With "Discover,” one player puts a card face down and pushes it toward the other, who has to do whatever action is on the card. Alternately, one player can "Dispel" a card, which means swapping it with one of the cards in the grid and discarding the one that got pushed out. Then, the other player draws a card from their pile instead. Dispelled cards must be the oldest in a player's hand.
The goal is to play the magic cards and avoid the shadow cards, but since the cards are face down, luck plays a major role in Disney Shadowed Kingdom. It's impossible to determine whether it's better to Discover or Dispel, so it's ultimately a guessing game. Although it's supposed to be co-operative, there's no way for players to coordinate and achieve the main objectives. In fact, it might work better as a competitive card game, where the player who raises the magic counter first, wins.
Additionally, the actual game materials aren't super high quality. On the back of each character card is a section of a map, though the location presented when the cards are put together is never explained in-game. The game cards were stuck together and had to be peeled apart, which damaged the edging of the cards right out of the box. The rule book has tiny font and would benefit from photos to demonstrate gameplay, since the written rules aren't very descriptive.
Although the concept for Disney Shadowed Kingdom is great, it fails to deliver a coherent strategy game that can be enjoyed by anyone, let alone children.