Explorers is a new flip-and-write game by Phil Walker-Harding, busy bee and creator of Sushi Go and Llamaland, among other titles, and published by the travel-hungry Ravensburger. In Explorers, you and other explorers (your fellow players) will explore undiscovered territory and raid tombs…. I mean: study as ancient artefacts belong in a museum! Which player will discover victory though?
At the beginning of a game of Explorers, all players are given some sort of cardboard frame. In large open space in that frame, players place four landscape tiles each depicting grassland, water, desert, or mountains that players will explore. Players place these terrain tiles all in the same orientation. In addition, players also place three score tiles in the frame. Each player now crosses off one of the four villages on the terrain tiles and also chooses a terrain type and places four crosses in that terrain next to the crossed off village and players are ready to go exploring!
The game consists of 4 rounds and each round 7 exploration tiles are turned face up. On the exploration cards, two types of terrain or two combinations of terrain are depicted. The active player chooses one of the two types or combinations of terrain depicted and may then place three crosses on that terrain. The other players may place three crosses on the unchosen terrain or two crosses on the same terrain chosen by the active player. Placed crosses must always be adjacent to other crosses. In the game world you discover objects, provisions, gems, horses and temples. One of the objects you can discover are keys, which can be used to open temples to earn points. With horses you can place any cross on your game board for free and by saving provisions and gems you can earn points during the four rounds. In addition, there are even more opportunities to earn points, and players looking for some extra challenge and variety can even play with additional objectives/missions. At the beginning of the game, unused terrain tiles are turned over, showing scoring possibilities.
Players fill their terrain tiles in a playful manner and discover the world in this way. Explorers is nicely designed and contains beautiful and reusable playing material, which is always a welcome addition to roll-and-writes or flip-and-writes (although an oldschool sheet of paper is never wrong). Because the game contains multiple terrain tiles and players place them in a random orientation at the beginning of the game, the game also contains plenty of variety. The game itself is easy to learn, but may be less innovative for the seasoned board player. For novice players and fans of simple roll-and-writes such as Time on Time and Clever, Explorers offers a nicely designed and varied alternative! In short, Explorers is a fun discovery!
