Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures Board Game Review

Ever wanted to be Woody, Buzz or Bo Peep from Disney Pixar’s Toy Story? Well, now is your chance in Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures, a deck building cooperative game for 2-5 players. Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures is created by Prospero Hall who have also brought you Villainous and Bob Ross: Art of Chill. Pick your hero or heroine and play through 6 adventures, each with their own objective to win that adventure. 

Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures is a deck building game that will take 2-5 players through 6 progressive adventures each with their own winning objective. It is designed for children of 8 years and up. It is a cooperative game that finds all the players working together to achieve the final goal of living happily ever after. Let’s take a deeper look into why this may be the perfect game for your family.

Table of Contents

1. What is Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures about?
2. How do I play Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures?
   1. Preparing to play
   2. Playing the game
   3. Win or Lose
3. Is Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures worth buying?

What is Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures about?

Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures is based on the same engine as the Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle game also from Prospero Hill. As Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is 11 plus I am guessing Toy story was adapted for the younger players. Which is great because Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures is a quality game.

The game is a cooperative game bringing all the Toy Story friends together to beat a common enemy. There are 6 adventures to play through which roughly follow the movie’s storylines. You must complete the adventure in order to progress to the next one. If you fail to complete the adventure then you must set up the adventure and try again.

For those readers who don’t know what a deck building game is. Wikipedia explanation states:

In Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures this means that more cards are added as you progress through each adventure. For example, Jesse is not available as a character until adventure two.

How well is Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures made?

Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures is a really well thought out game. You don’t have to complete all the adventures in one sitting. When you have finished playing there are some dividers to store the cards that are out. This enables quicker set up time next time. All the components store nicely in the box.

As for the graphic design, it is beautiful with each of the character boards with their own graphic design for the character. The game has lots of imagery from the movies too and the overall look is very pleasing.

• 1 Game Board
• 262 Cards (Adventure, Booster, Hazard, Turn Order, You Are A Toy)
• Chipboard Pieces (35 Insight 25 Imagination 5 Health)
• 5 Player Boards
• 6 Adventure Boxes
• 4 Dice
• 5 Player Boards
• 11 Divider Cards
• 6 Adventure Tracks
• 6 Zinc Movers
• 1 Rule Book
• 5 Rule Sheets

How do I play Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures?

Adventure 1 and 2 are easily beaten so I am assuming they have designed Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures to make these as training levels. They introduce the gameplay and rules as you play and then adventure 3 becomes markedly more difficult.

You start with Adventure 1 so let’s take a look at how you play.

Preparing to play

Each adventure is slightly different and so has instructions on how to play. First thing, place out the game board and take the adventure track for the scenario you are playing with. The adventure track has two sides depending on the number of players (2-3 or 4-5 players) so make sure you put the right side up.

Next open the scenario you are about to play, remembering that they should be played and completed in order. Each pack has an adventure, danger and hazard decks.

Take the danger deck and give it a good shuffle and place it on the board. The next deck is the adventure deck which should also be shuffled and placed on the board.

Now draw 6 cards from the top of the adventure deck and place them face up in their allocated spots on the board. If you draw duplicates then stack them on top of each other and draw another card. The objective is to fill up all the available adventure spaces on the board.

Take the hazard deck and in adventure 1 you will need to take out the Escape from Sid card from the deck. Shuffle the rest then place the Escape from Sid card facedown on the board and the other cards on top. 

The Escape from Sid card should be on the bottom of the deck. You can now draw the top hazard card and place it face up on the board. Place the insight and imagination pieces where everyone can reach them near the board.

Now each player chooses the toy they want to play with and takes the player card for that toy. Each toy player board comes with a health marker and 10 starter cards. Along with these they have an ability and a turn order card. The player card has a spot for the insight and imagination pieces they collect.

The player board has a draw side on the left and a discard side on the right. Shuffle your 10 starter cards and place them face down on the left.

Finally each player draws 5 cards from their player deck and this will be their starting hand.

Playing the game

The game is collaborative so you must all work together to beat the adventure. Each adventure has an objective. For example adventure 1 requires you to escape from Sid before the removal van reaches the end of the track.

There is a timer mechanism on the adventure track that will both increase difficulty and count down.

Through building your deck you can gain Insight and Imagination pieces from your player deck. Which will enable you to overcome the hazards and build your deck further.

Now we have set up, let’s take a look at the game turn.

Game Turn

The game turn has four actions each player takes in order. This is defined by the player turn card for the toy you are playing. If we take Woody as an example the first step is taking and resolving danger cards.

1. In the first adventure Woody will need to draw one and resolve it. The number of danger cards drawn is controlled by the adventure track. Later adventures increase as the counter moves along the adventure track. 
2. Resolve any hazard cards that are out.
3. Play your adventure cards. Once played those cards are placed in the discard pile. You also play any insight or imagination cards here. Any adventure, insight, or imagination cards not used will be discarded.
4. Discard any adventure cards, insight, or imagination pieces that you have not used.

Insight pieces will allow you to overcome the Hazard cards on the game board. Each Hazard card has a number in the bottom right to indicate how many Insight pieces are required to overcome them.

As you gain the Insight pieces you can place them on the game board underneath the face up Hazard card to keep track. Once you have the correct amount to overcome the hazard then you receive the reward noted on the card. 

The card is then placed in the discard space on the game board and the Insight pieces are placed back in the pile. At the end of your turn you draw a new hazard card.

Imagination pieces are like currency. They allow you to buy any of the adventure cards that are face up on the game board as long as you have enough to pay for them. This then allows you to build your deck and become more powerful.

As you purchase the Imagination card it is placed directly into your discard pile. 

Once your turn is over the next player will take theirs and follow their turn order card. This is repeated until you win or lose the adventure.

Toy Health

Your toy has health that starts off at the maximum 10. As the game plays you can lose health or gain health.

If your health gets to 0 you don’t die, instead you get shelved. This means that bad things happen but you still get to play on. If you get shelved then:

1. You don’t gain or lose health until the end of the turn.
2. Any Insight and Imagination you have is discarded.
3. Discard half the cards in your hand rounded down. Any discard effect is still applied.
4. The adventure track token is advanced one space.
5. If it is your turn, complete any actions from your hand.
6. At the end of the turn you reset your health back to the maximum health.

Win or Lose

There is one way to win the game and that is to overcome the final hazard card before the adventure token reaches the end of the track.

If the token reaches the end of the track then everyone loses. If you lose then you will need to re-attempt the adventure before going on to the next one.

Is Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures worth buying?

Besides the fact that it is Toy Story and any child who loves the film will love this game too. Toy Story Obstacles and Adventures is a great introduction to deck building. The progressive difficulty is also fun and finding out what is in the next adventure box.

Whilst the target audience is 8+, don’t be fooled as this will be fun for you too. You’ll have hours of fun playing through the adventures as your favorite Toy Story character.

	Players	Age	Playtime (m)	Rating
Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures	2-5	8+	45-90	7.5
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