Played it for the first time tonight. I was shocked how great this game is and no one talks about it. It's damn near perfection. This is now one of my favorite games after only one play. Its a perfect blend of interesting mechanics and theme. 10/10 seriously
Other reviewers take note !!! This is how you review a game you don't like. You can have a great review without totally praising or smashing a game. Tom did this one perfect. Said it was a great game just was not for him and then gave a few reasons for each. Wish more reviews were honest like this one.
As an owner and lover of this game I would say that Toms review is spot on. So here we have an example of how to review a game which can be both excellent and for a category of player unenjoyable. The game has balance and and theme and a mechanism that rewards those who plan for balance in their actions but it does have so many choices that it can leave you foggy on what you are achieving. Personally I love the game, yet i have never won yet. So its not for everyone but I think it sits in the realm of games which give you time to think and to chat and possibly time to finish a four course meal with digestives !
It also has little to no player interaction and is the purest example of a multi player puzzle I have ever come across. It is a very good multi player puzzle though.
Matt Green There's a decent amount of interaction once you understand the game. It has the blocking of worker placement, taking cards that others want, and clearing the cards that others are building towards. Additionally, you're using icons from other players to boost your own cards and can copy cards others have played which adds another layer of interaction. Yes, it is fairly independent compared to some game, but compared to most Euro games it isn't so bad.
Stefan Lopuszanski my point of reference is that I really only ever play euro games and still think the interaction is Lewis and Clark is low to none. By 'euros' I don't mean worker placement and action selection games either, there is more to the genre than those mechanisms. There is nothing you can do to harm a player's positon in this game: only limit their potential progression. Deliberately doing so is usually at cost to your own optimisation. None of which majes it a bad game, just one that is more towards the puzzlier end of the spectrum than the cut-throat.
Matt Green interestingly in a recent review for Lewis & Clark I wrote pretty much the same words. Any level of blocking or interfering with another players progress through resource hoarding inevitably backfires on the player. If anything it might be more interesting to be able to force swap or buy recruited characters away from another player.
We just played the game 4 players and 2 of us were learning. We completed the game in 1,5h but since we wanted to define 2nd place it added 30 minutes since all other 3 were really close and it was 1 turn difference WIN/LOSE! Played it 2 players just today and it's once again - amazing to me. I guess 3 players are the golden spot to get most benefits from using cards and worker-block.
lots of reviewers have concerns with the "slowness" which I find a littl;e funny. This is actually a realistic aplication of the theme!! Yes, it might impact the game in a negative manner, but the frustration you feel certainly allows you to haaaave empathy with the Corps of discovery. However, since the Corps was not on a race, this turns out not to be a simulation of the Corps. This theme would have been better served as a co-operative style game, IMHO.
I have found the game to be an excellent 2 player game - for me and my wife. I don't know if I would ever play it with more than that because I see the possibility of AP (Analysis Paralysis) and I think that a new player would be crushed by the two of us and surely would not appreciate the experience. As to the experience itself, I like that it is not a typical kind of race, but it has a strong element of preparation and planning before you take on a specific element of the track. It got me the feeling of doing something substantial and being rewarded for my plan and its execution. For me personally this is the strongest point and I don't care for minimal interaction - on the contrary, because of this, it is a good (playing) couples game.
Just a quick correction: player's don't get an even number of turns -- when someone makes camp the game ends immediately. Besides that all the rules were spot on (although obviously he didn't go into detail on some of the intricacies behind Indian collection and some other things like copying other player's cards). And this game is very frustrating and thinky, but also fun and interesting at the same time. It can be VERY analysis paralysis prone, but it is still really neat. I think we've exclaimed more curses over this game than any other as we planned moves only to miss our goal by a single space. One of the most frustrating and puzzle games out there, but definitely fun at the same time. I can understand Tom's view though as it is definitely not for everyone.
Would agree with the comments about not playing it with 5. I played with that number and dropped out after about 3 and a half hours so others could finish it quicker and so I could fit another couple of games in. It still took the remaining players another hour and a half to get it done.It’s a really nice game and theme but massively outstays it’s welcome at higher player counts.
I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts, Tom. The game is great, but it's way too AP inducing. EDIT: Oh, and about the resources needing stickers; they have stickers available, but didn't include them with the game. For shame.
Thanks for the honest review. While the history of Lewis & Clark is interesting to me, I'm the king of AP, so think I'll have to sit this one out. And a co-op game with this theme would be great!
+Brandon James Not a coop, but Discoveries has a basically identical theme with much snappier gameplay. Quick dice rolling but a lot of great strategy. It CAN be a little AP I guess, but usually you have a defined startegy in mind that you will be working towards for several turns and the turns themselves are very fast.
My wife and I play this in about 45min. Don't listen when he says it is 45 min per player! The first game or two, sure, but it is correct to say it is about 30 min per player.
Great, well-balanced review. I personally love this game. It seems to me that peoples' opinions of this game rely heavily upon the type of players in their gaming groups. I tend to play with folks who are quick, and I play that way myself. Our first three player game of this took about 75 minutes. That said, I doubt I'd every play this with more than three people.
I just played this game for the first time and was blown away by how great it is. I wasn't interested in the theme and this review made me pass it by but wow this is a great game. Its thematic, interesting, engaging, strategic, and unique. This might make my top 10 games of all time. I was really surprised. definitely underrated.
After Tom's review i can see how this game can be a drag and drive some people insane (me too probably). Spot on - efficiency exercise. If i get this correctly, even the cards you haven't played on your turn will harm you and move you back. Insane! :) Yes, very thematic probably, but still a bit too much. There is no game of Civilization building that you have to play for a week or so. You know, it would be thematic, because it takes so long to build a civ :)
It's a hand-building + hand-management + resource management game. Crafting a small or big hand gives you more/fewer actions to take and more/less benefits for your opponents. Finding the sweetspot with everytime different combinations along with different strategies is simply amazing. Just play the game instead of tryhard and you will find it a lot of fun.
I agree with Tom : we played four players, and it really, really dragged. It took three hours...and we still HADN'T finished. So we just quit. I would MUCH rather play Jamaica : similiar theme, but much faster, and far, far more FUN.
It does. There are actually a lot of Indigenous people who prefer to stick to the term Indian it turns out. It's best to ask what they prefer because it might vary a lot since North America is so vast. Watched a few videos about that. In Canada, the newer term they have chosen is Indigenous.
