In summer 2008 the blockbuster adventure movie "The Mummy" was given a second sequel with "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor", and now Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle and RAVENSBURGER have decided that the exploration of the Pyramids should not be left to the movie industry alone. So, at the SPIEL 08 convention at Essen RAVENSBURGER has released Fluch der Mumie, a game especially for children in which a group of adventurers has awakened a horrible Mummy while searching a Pyramid for treasures.

One player takes the role of the Mummy, whereas all other players will assume the roles of Adventurers. The gameboard is not placed on the table, but like in sophisticated versions of Battleships the board instead stands upright as a separation between the adventurers and the mummy player. All playing figures are magnetic and will be moved on the corresponding sides of the gameboard, but whereas the Mummy has a token on both sides (and thus can be seen by the other players), the adventurers only have a playing figure on their side so that the Mummy player only can guess for the actual positions of the adventurers.

Each of the adventurer players receives a random set of five treasure cards. These cards display treasures which are distributed at different areas of the Pyramid, and the first player to succeed to visit (and gather) all five of his treasures will have won the game. To move through the Pyramid, the active player rolls and hand of dice (showing numbers from "1" to "4", an arrow-symbol and a Mummy-symbol) and then choses one of the dice to make is movement. He then may make either a number of moves matching the number displayed by the chosen dice, or (if an arrow was chosen), he moves his figure into one direction until the next blocked space (Mummy, wall, other adventurer) is reached. All dice with Mummy-symbols will be put aside.

The Mummy player will try to capture the adventurers on their way through the Pyramid, and he knows where all the players have started. In addition, he must be told which dice a player has used for moving his adventurer, and so he may calculate and speculate where the adventure may have moved. Additional information is gained by the Mummy whenever a player reaches a space which displays one of the five treasures needed by the adventurer. Then the adventurer must announce that he has found a treasure and reveal his card, so that the Mummy player once again gets an idea where the player might move next.

After all adventurers have moved, the Mummy is moved by rolling a special Mummy-dice and adding the total number of Mummy symbols on all player dice which have been put aside. Thus, the Mummy's range increases the more players have rolled a Mummy. And, if at a time all five of the adventurer dice show a Mummy, the Mummy gets an additional move of five spaces before the dice are returned to the general stockpile.

When the Mummy lands on a space with an adventurer there is a snapping sound when the magnets collide. The adventurer is considered to be captured and his figure is moved to the dungeon where it must start its movement at the player's following turn. In addition, the captured player has to discard one of his three Ankh (Life) tokens, and if a player has lost all three Ankhs his character will be out of the game. However, the Mummy player is happy for every Ankh he collects, since he needs a certain number of Anks (depending on the number of the players) to win the game. Thus, the players compete against the Mummy to leave the Pyramid with all of their treasures, and the winner of the game will be either an Adventurer with all needed treasures or the Mummy if its player should have gathered a certain amount of Ankhs.

Fluch der Mumie is a nice, enjoyable family game which should be liked especially by younger children who will feel the chill and tension which comes up when the evil Mummy player moves the Mummy and - in some instances - barely passes an Adventurer in a neighbouring tunnel. The level of strategy for the Adventurer players is rather straightforward, since the players will try to gather their treasures while at the same time keeping the Mummy at a maximum distance, so that the movement of the Adventurers is highly influenced by the current positioning of the Mummy. On the other hand the Mummy players faces a somewhat tougher challenge, since he will have to speculate where the Adventurers may have moved after their last visible action (i.e. the taking of a treasure). This makes it a bit harder for the Mummy to win if the other players show a generally careful attitude, but to my mind it balances the game well if a grown-up or an older child takes the role of the Mummy against a group of younger children.