Board games are a great way to encourage critical thinking, problem solving, and cooperation with kids.

In HABA’s new game Luxantis, players will work together to devise a plan to vanquish shadow creatures that are advancing towards the castle. Navigating through a labyrinth to find magical items, they will need to decide how best to divide and conquer the board in order to win. Throughout the game they will have to reevaluate and adjust their plan as each turn can bring about unexpected changes to the game board. 

The only way to win is together, so they’ll have to stay sharp and help each other all along the way if they hope to vanquish the shadow creatures and win the game.

What is Luxantis? 

Luxantis is a cooperative game for 2 – 4 players ages six years and up. You must protect Luxantis Castle from shadow creatures looking to take it over. Each creature can only be stopped with the help of certain enchanted objects that can be found in the magic light forest. 

Together you must set out into the forest and navigate your way through the labyrinth to find these enchanted items. Light up the labyrinth using the lights that show you the safe and the unsafe paths that you must remember in order to navigate safely. 

Once all the creatures have been vanquished the players win the game. However, if even one creature reaches Luxantis Castle, the players lose. 

What’s in the box:

Inside the box you’ll find the rulebook, one six-sided die, 36 shadow creature cards, 24 tree tokens, four transparent player markers, the Luxantis Castle board, and the electronic LED light forest labyrinth game board. 

The shadow creature deck has 36 beautifully illustrated cards featuring eight different creatures each with either 1-4 different magical objects. 

The electronic labyrinth board sits in the bottom of the box. You’ll need two AA batteries, which are not included in the game, to turn it on. After putting batteries into the board you won’t need to take it back out again for play. 

How do you play?

To play Luxantis, you’ll first need to select 8 shadow creature cards that you’ll work towards vanquishing. Shuffle the cards, and then place the top four cards face up on the bottom row of the Luxantis Castle board. These are the first four creatures you will face. 

Players should study the magical objects on these creatures and discuss which objects they want to go after first. 

To begin, turn on the electronic board by pressing the green power button in the middle of the labyrinth. Then press the black vortex button to randomize the light forest paths. The paths will flash with either red or blue lights. The red “ghost lights” are the paths that will be the most risky to take, while the blue “fireflies” show the safe paths through the forest. 

The lights will stay on for around 15 seconds, during which players should try to remember where the safe and risky paths are so as to chart their path towards the magical objects. 

Once the lights go out, the game begins. 

Turn actions

On your turn you have two actions: 1. Move your figure and 2. Roll the die

When moving your figure, you can move up to 5 path spaces either vertically and/or horizontally. You are not allowed to move diagonally or over any hedges or walls on the board. You may only move to open spaces and cannot share a space with another player or jump over another player while moving. 

If you land on a magical object during your turn you may end your turn and use the object to fight the shadow creatures. If you do not wish to use it, then you can just move past it.

After moving your figure 1-5 spaces, you then roll the die and resolve it before play continues clockwise. 

If you roll the red ghost lights, press the red button on the center of the board. The red ghost lights will light up to mark all of the dangerous areas of the forest. All players who are on a path space that lights up red must place their play figure back in the center of the board and start from there on their next turn.

If you roll the blue fireflies, press the blue button on the center of the board. The blue lights will light up to show the save paths on the board. All players who are on a path space that lights up blue have the option to move their figure exactly one path space. If this causes a player to land on a magical object you may use it to fight the shadow creatures. 

If you roll a black vortex, press the black button. This causes the paths to change positions and the red ghost lights to flash. Now once safe paths may become dangerous. If you are on a path space that lights up red after the black vortex has been pressed, you must move your marker to the center of the board. The lights will stay on only for a few seconds so players should take the time to remember the new paths.

If you roll a shadow creature, you must advance one creature towards Luxantis Castle. Players discuss together which creature they want to move one space forward. Once the card is moved forward you must immediately fill the gap left by that creature with a new shadow creature on the lowest row until the draw pile is empty. 

During the later part of the game, no gap may result between two shadow creatures in a column, the lowest creature always moves up to close the gap.

Fighting Shadow Creatures

To fight a shadow creature, a player must end their turn with their play figure on a space with a magical object. If this happens, look at the magical object that your marker is on, then use the tree tokens to cover up that object on each face-up creature that it is present. If the object is not present on the creatures then nothing happens.

When all of the objects on a creature are covered by tree tokens, then that shadow creature is vanquished and disappears. Place all tree tokens from that creature back to the stockpile and remove the creature from the board, placing it aside. You then will flip over the next shadow creature from the draw pile and fill in the gap left by the vanquished creature. If this creature has symbols that match any of the magical objects currently covered by play figures, you may immediately cover up these objects on the new card as well. 

Ending the game

Play continues until one of two things happens. 

If you manage to vanquish all the creatures, then you win and become the heroes of Luxantis!

However, if one shadow creature has to be moved from the uppermost fourth row and reaches the castle, then everyone loses.

Once the game is over, don’t forget to press the green on/off button to shut off the board. (If you forget, there is an auto-off timer that will shut the board off after a few minutes of inactivity.)

What do we think?

I’ll admit, I was surprised when I saw the promotional for Luxantis a few months ago. 

A HABA game? That requires batteries?? No wooden pieces???

I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that HABA rarely puts out a dud. Luxantis is a beautiful, fun, fresh take on labyrinth games that works very well for its targeted audience.

From the moment I opened the box all of our kids were so excited to play. The board looks really impressive and if there’s one thing kids love its pushing buttons. (of all kinds, right parents?!) 

The first thing I was worried I wouldn’t like was the electronic aspect of it. I usually shy away from games that require batteries, make sounds, etc. They feel too much like a toy at that point. So let me tell you that I really love the LED board. The lights show up really well. There’s no need to play in a darker room. Smaller kids may need to lean over the top of the game to get a good look at the path lights, but overall, they are really easy to see from all sides. Oh, and there’s no noise! 

We have a few different labyrinth games including the original Labyrinth, and the Magic Labyrinth. While those games are fun, the pieces and the process to set the game up can get a bit finicky. With Luxantis being electronic, it takes the hassle out of both of those frustrations. 

This makes it much easier for kids to get it set up and going without the help of an adult. (Can I get an AMEN?!)  Plus, the less time it takes to get the game set up, the faster kids can get to playing, which is so important when playing with the countdown clock of a child’s attention span. Simply turn on the board, press the black vortex button and your paths are set up and ready! Couldn’t be easier!

Speaking of those attention spans, Luxantis is incredibly easy to scale up or down to adjust for the age of the kids you’re playing with! 

When selecting your creatures, if you need a shorter game, simply select creatures that only require one or two magical objects to be vanquished. Not only does this shorten the game, but it makes it really easy for your younger players to decide which items they need to go after. If you’re playing with older kids, grab some of the creatures that require three or four objects to give them a challenge. 

The cooperative theme really works well here. There are a lot of things players need to discuss together and different problems they need to solve. 

No one can be the sole hero in this game. Everyone needs to pitch in and work together to vanquish the creatures. Kids will have to look at the creatures and discuss which objects they need to go after. Then look towards the board and decide who is best positioned to go after each of those objects. Which creature to vanquish first is another choice they’ll have to make, along with which creature to advance when a dice roll requires it. 

Any time kids have to make choices in their game is a favorite of mine and Luxantis is full of them. It requires them to think critically and strategically about what they are doing and listen to the input of others. They may not always make the right choice, but they’ll learn from their mistakes as much as their victories.

There’s a decent amount of tension that can be brought out of Luxantis as well. Our kids really enjoyed the creatures advancing towards the castle and the need to vanquish them. Rolling a red Ghost Lights or a Vortex on the die had them nervous, hoping that they were on the right path and not about to be sent back to the center. 

That said, there can also be a lack of tension if you have relatively good dice rolls and don’t need to advance any creatures. In an effort to test the game at all player counts, we played it after the kids went to bed just us two and didn’t have to move a creature one time and rarely needed to hit the vortex to change the paths. 

But such is any game that involves dice. The first game we played we had our last creature knocking on the castle doors and were just one object away from winning, making for a very stressful final few turns for the kids. It really was a lot of fun.

The game is marketed towards kids starting at age 6. We played with our three oldest and they all loved it. Our son who is four really enjoyed the game and quickly understood each step and process. Our three-year-old loved being able to play on his own, but obviously needed an adult to help guide him and keep him on track. The game is definitely beyond his level, but he’s still able to play and be involved and was always the most nervous every time a ghost light was rolled or a creature needed to advance. 

For our daughter this game was quickly understood and loved. At seven, she was able to strategize and think through her choices, yet the game wasn’t so easy that she didn’t still make mistakes and have to rethink her plan of attack. 

It’s a really good fit for kids in that 6-9 age group.

Summary

Luxantis is a fun cooperative game for kids that features beautiful artwork, the need to collaborate and work together, and multiple opportunities to make different choices, challenging kids to be strategic and think critically about their moves. It does this all while playing within about 20-30 minutes which is just about perfect for games for this age range.

While it requires batteries, this is anything but a toy. The electronic nature merely streamlines the labyrinth aspect of it, making it far less finicky and much easier to get set up and going for kids. 

As typical with HABA, this game is well made with beautiful art that truly invites kids to jump in and play. Kids as young as 4 or 5 can enjoy this (with some help) and parents can easily scale the game up or down depending on the needs of the players.

Overall, we were really impressed with Luxantis and think it will be a good fit for our kids while they are young. This one probably isn’t going to be brought out for a group of adults to enjoy, but that’s certainly not an issue. It’s still fun for the whole family!

If you enjoy labyrinth style games or cooperative games for kids Luxantis is a great option and one well worth checking out. 

Thank you so much to HABA for providing us a copy of Luxantis to review!
As always our reviews and opinions are our own.

If you’d like to order your own copy of Luxantis you can do that HERE!

To read more of our reviews of HABA games or other games for kids in this age range, check out these posts to get you started:
Our Three Favorite HABA games
Dragon’s Breath
Ghost Fighting’ Treasure Hunters

Game Info:
Title: Luxantis
Ages: 6+
Play Time: 20-30 minutes
Price: $49.99
Designer: Kai Haferkamp
Artist: Stephanie Böhm
Publisher: HABA
Published: 2018

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