Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Nowadays, the production standards for board games are so high that you can’t swing a dead cat token without hitting a gorgeous box. Even in that crowded field, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, Reiner Knizia’s latest roll-and-write, stands out. Artist Lorenzo Colangeli does some best-in-class work here, on page after page.
You could argue that he has it a little easy. He’s drawing such beloved characters, such culturally ubiquitous icons, that he’s basically drawing with a stacked pencil. To the contrary, says I. Popular culture has been so thoroughly flooded with renderings of J.R.R. Tolkien’s brood that it’s difficult to make something that doesn’t feel tired.
Colangeli succeeds with flying, rich, earthy colors. The style he uses here is reminiscent of work from animator Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars. That level of stylization risks feeling crowded, but Colangeli keeps these 12 boards entirely legible. When you open to one of the two-page spreads in this dry erase book, each of which presents a different chapter in your adventure, everything makes sense.
That’s especially important in a game with constantly shifting rules, as is the case here. Every chapter of There and Back Again has unique scoring criteria, restrictions, goals, end conditions, and bonuses. These are explained beautifully not only in the rulebook, but on the pages of the dry erase books themselves. It doesn’t necessarily bode well that I am spending so much time in this review cheering on the production choices, including an excellent rulebook and clear iconography, but in the case of The Hobbit: There and Back Again, they are so exceptional that I would be dedicating the column space to this even if it were my game of the year. This is thoughtful, characterful, unflashy stuff. The rulebook is great. The dry erase books are great. The art and player aides are superb. A+ on that front.
The game itself, which has Knizia working in a mode that brings to mind his superior My City (don’t listen to David, it’s a masterpiece), is pretty typical for a roll & write. Knizia is cribbing from his own Lost City: Roll & Write. Roll dice. Choose some. Everyone else gets to use what’s left. Fill your board, usually trying to get from one end of the board to the other. Don’t wake the trolls, outrun the wolves, etc. You know, Hobbit stuff. It’s pleasant enough, but as a game, it doesn’t leave much of an impression outside of its ambition.
That ambition has to count for something, though. I mean that. The experience of playing a game that is attempting something new in terms of scope is its own thrill. The aesthetic experience of turning to a new page and seeing more work from Colangeli alone makes There and Back Again enjoyable. With limited tools available—at the end of the day, for the most part, all you’re ever doing is drawing some lines—The Hobbit: There and Back Again attempts to cultivate a variety of experiences.
To what extent it succeeds, I’m not sure. Most chapters feel the same, even with the changes in rules. They create superficial differences rather than substantive ones. These superficial differences map admirably onto the source material, but in the eternal struggle between a hook and a gimmick, they err strongly towards the latter. Beautiful art and a wonderful presentation do a lot for The Hobbit: There and Back Again, but I was left with the feeling that it wasn’t worth the trip.
