Sunday, August 21, 2022

Entry 78: Week 33- Trekking Through History

        If you liked trekking through our National Parks and then trekked across the globe you will for sure love Trekking Through History. Underdog Games next board game in the series takes you to important historical events spanning from 37000 BCE where you leave your handprint at the caves of Maros-Pangkep all the way up to 1994 where you are able to cast your vote for Nelson Mandela. 

TREKKING THROUGH HISTORY (2022) 

BGG Description 

In Trekking through History, you go on a three-day tour of human history, traveling thousands of years in a time machine to experience great moments from our past. 

The game takes place over three rounds, each representing one day of your trip. Each day, you visit a series of historical events, spending a different number of hours at each. 

On each turn, you choose to visit one historical event, and spend a certain number of hours doing it. Doing so will yield benefits, like checking off items on your itinerary for points, and earning Time Crystals so you can bend the space-time continuum on future turns. 

Along the way, you’ll also score points for visiting historical events in chronological order. The player with the most points after three rounds wins. 

—description from the publisher 

Weight 2.0/5 

A Little More Info 

        The game doesn’t take long to play since each Day is only 12 hours long. At the start of the game you get four itinerary cards (which are all different) and you get to select one to play for each day. 

        The turn order goes by whoever is furthest behind on the clock. If multiple players are at the same hour, the player on top of the stack goes next. 

        The historical event cards you get, score points at the end of the game for your “trek.” The longer the trek, the more points you score. Do not be afraid to end one trek to begin another if you have too. 

        Also, ancestor cards are helpful because they add another card to your trek and allows you to hope that other players will take cards before your next turn that brings out new cards that may help your timeline more. 

What we like about the game 

        The first thing to mention is that the game set-up is super fast and simple to complete. Take down requires just a hair more time because you will need to sort out the historical event cards by which day stack they belong too. 
        We love that the main board is a neoprene play mat. The amount of table space needed for the game is "coffee table" sized.  
        The artwork on each card and the additional information on the back of the cards are wonderful. The sheer beauty of the game draws you in. 
        The gameplay and rules are simple to follow. Also, this is a game where analysis-paralysis is kept to a minimum. No need for overthinking your turn. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        Nothing fits in the category for us regarding the game. If you are looking for some new mechanic for a game, there isn’t. Everything is straight forward in this game. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        As my wife has stated “this is my favorite Trekking game in the series” and I can agree with her on that. The game is fun, easy, beautiful, and fast to play (30 minutes or less). 

        This is a game that younger kids could play because there isn’t a lot of reading in the game (a parent can read all the descriptive text). If a child knows their numbers (and with a little help understanding B.C.E. if they don’t understand it) this game is great for them. It is also a great teaching tool as well. 

        Another thing with Trekking Through History is that there is a lot of room for the game to have expansions. Our history is so rich with events that I am sure the creators were having a hard time just settling on 108 of them for this game. I would love to see possible themed expansion packs that could be integrated into the base game or expand the game into more days and/or hours per day. 

        My last final thought about this game is that if you are a solo game player you would need to get the Kickstarter version because it includes a great solo mode. 
Underdog Games has really hit the mark with this game. Can’t wait to see what will be next in the Trekking series.

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