Electronic Enchanted Palace

 

You know, I'm starting to realize that there was a trend of making girly games with the word "electronic" in front of their titles for a while. "Electronic Dream Phone", "Electronic Mall Madness", and now "Electronic Enchanted Palace". Sadly, this installment in the electronic girly interest board game isn't by Michael Gray. And, like the other two, or at least like Dream Phone moreso than Mall Madness, it barely registers as a board game because, well, it really straddles that fine line between board game and convoluted toy.

So how's this game work? Well, according to our good friends over at Board Game Geek (I don't know if we're actually good friends, we've never really hung out, but I like to think we'd get along well), they state the throughline of the game is as follows:

"Once upon a time in a land far away, an Evil Witch captured a magical palace and locked its Good Queen in the tower! Can you and your friends help her escape? If you do, you can become Princess of the Kingdom!

Use the enchanted wand to search each palace room for a magic lantern, mirror, and key. When the wand lights up, you'll hear different sounds from each of the 7 rooms - birds singing in the garden, music from the music room, and even moans from the dungeon! Then listen closely and the Good Queen will tell you what to do.

Beware the Evil Witch - she'll turn anyone into a frog! Use the wand to undo her spells and save your friends! To win: collect all 3 magic objects, free the Good Queen, banish the Evil Witch, and become the Princess of the Kingdom!"

First off, I have some questions. Are you and your friends just some randos who stumble into this kingdom and then decide to rescue the Queen? Is that how come you're able to become the Princess? Because, does the Queen not have children? Realistically, in this scenario and setting, a royal family tends to have an offspring to pass down the lineage to, but the way this is written makes it sound like the Queen is cold, barren bitch who hasn't been capable of conceiving and now you're here to save the day. And if not, if you are somehow the Queens daughter, aren't you already the Princess of the castle? Far too many questions because it lacks far too much context. Specifics matter.

So, our electronic tool in this game is the wand. In essence, it essentially functions like a magical metal detector, helping you uncover the items necessary to overthrowing the Evil Witch and rescuing a kingdom that had been plunged into eternal darkness. One of the cool aspects is that the witch can apparently curse you and your friends, and make your quest that much harder to complete. Overall it sounds like a fairly easy, decent game to play and its runtime says it only lasts about 20 minutes and can have up to 4 players, so you could easily do a few games, maybe betting on who becomes the princess next and opting to screw over your friends for a chance at the crown, maybe leaving them as frogs for eternity. Just an idea to make things more interesting.

And it's a shame there's no designers listed for this thing, and I genuinely mean that it's a shame because this thing is beautiful. For one thing, it's one of the only board games I've ever seen that can be assembled in its box, the box acting as a base of sorts.

I don't know why I've never really seen this done before either, it seems like such a simplistic concept that's just never been properly utilized. It not only makes the box part of the board, it also declutters the surrounding area. It's just such a neat idea. Especially since, aesthetically, it appears as if it was designed to do this. You can see shrubbery alongside the box that almost goes along with the shrubbery that grows along the castle walls, and it all just seems to fit so perfectly together that I have a hard time believing it wasn't designed with this in mind. All in all, a top notch idea and beautifully executed. But even more than just the box, the inserts are also amazingly well crafted, and I really wish I knew who to thank for their artwork for this. I mean, just scope some of these out.

This is quality craftsmanship right here, folks. The very specific hue used to color the castle walls, the curtain design around the throne, the collection of swords on the wall, the two guards who...apparently...are just standing around and letting this happen? Maybe fire those guys, they don't seem very effective at their job. I realize you're up against a witch casting magic, but still, you could at least try. What are we paying you for, anyway? These 3D pop up boards are always some of my favorites because, not having to be flush with the board proper, it allows the artist the ability to really try anything they want and often the result is stuff like this. 

And the box isn't bad either. While it's your typical 90s two kids playing the game kind of box, the colors and the framing are excellent. I especially am fond of the ethereal like purple haze that encompasses the box, and the cute little flickers of magic eminating from the wand proper. Except those girls need better haircuts. Listen, I was a kid in the 90s, I know how bad things were, but there's no excuse for making your 7 year old daughter look like a wall street secretary. And that's without even mentioning the back box, which we'll look at now!

This is maybe one of my favorite back boxes I've come across in my time doing this blog. We continue with the dreamy color tones, the white mixed with the nice soft blue and the little wand sparklies. We also have little isolated shots of certain parts of the game, including the queen token and the player turned into a frog. Then we get a pretty decent snapshot of the board as a whole, and considering it seems to be built into the box, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that I was correct in assuming that that's how it was intended to be built. Overall it's simple, but simplicity isn't inherently a bad thing, and really works out in this case. It's so easy on the eyes and pleasing to look at.

Honestly, and no shade to Michael Gray who sounds like a wonderful man, but this might be my favorite of the electronic trio. It just has a lot more going for it than the other two. Electronic Mall Madness is incredible, but I feel like it has perhaps too much going on, and Electronic Dream Phone is so plain that it's almost boring even if the design is fantastic. But Electronic Enchanted Palace seems like it gets it just right, smack dab in the middle. In all honesty, I kind of miss these electronic board games, and wish they'd make a comeback in some way, shape or form, especially if they had a 3D board like this and Mall Madness did. We're severely lacking in this type of game these days and society is lesser for it.

And for what it's worth, I think I personally would just join up with the witch, usurp her power and become the new witch. Why be a princess when I could be a witch? That's way cooler.