Ye Olde Inn

For some reason.. (Small parts more than likely) The end of the 80's.. early 90's saw a lot of disappointed 9 year old's lol.
PIC: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater
Well.. at least now, most of the fans are older now and it is more than likely this change would of had no effect at all! Just a random observation.

Perhaps a marketing decision?

Are there any known or documented differences in the 9yr old and 10yr old copies of the 4101 US edition?

Reviving a long dead thread, but its the first thread I found regarding this difference.

Trying to find out before spending the money to find out firsthand.

I am not really sure what is being discussed here. The link above does not work for me. Are there variations of the original NA versions of the game?

Yes. At the very least, there is an edition that says 9 years & old we and another that says 10 years and older. Both are 4101.

Here are pics of both lids

I have two copies of the NA versions, but I don’t have both in the same place, so I can’t compare them. They are probably 10 and up versions. All I can say is I was about 10 when I got my first copy for Christmas, and I had no idea how to play this game at the time. The instructions seemed so long my 10 year-old mind couldn’t read through them in one sitting.

My guess is the age was raised from 9 to 10 because 9 seems a little young to be learning this game on your own without playing it with someone with previous experience.

I would imagine the standards have changed. Maybe an over religious mother of a 9-year old complained and they changed the age requirements.
You know the parents that attacked D&D in its heyday? It could've just been one of them complaining that the box artwork was too scary for her 9-year old.

Maybe I'm wrong but sometimes it's the simplest explanation that works.

There are two different boxes from 1989 European versions, the first released is for 9+ years old, and the later one is for 10+ years old.

I didn't know it was also the same situation for NA edition of the game, always thought there were only 10+ versions.

I don't know if it had anything to do with the HeroQuest situation, but I once read an interview with a Lego designer who worked on classic Space sets in the 1980s and 1990s.

If I remember right, he said that he had to be careful about the complexity of the building instructions and techniques, because children have very definite developmental milestones that the Lego Group were well aware of. A typical seven-year-old would struggle to understand a certain spatial concept, but an eight-year-old would immediately grasp it. A year could make a big difference.

He knew that every year, there would be a new crop of seven-year-olds, so he had to keep each year's new sets aimed at the same level instead of making them more complicated.

Presumably similar things are taken into account in boardgames intended for kids.