Lewis & Clark: The Expedition

On the face of it, a straightforward race game until you realise that the hardest obstacles to overcome are not rivers and mountains but the game mechanism itself as you try to make camp in the most efficient way possible. Heavy on planning with multiple strategies and approaches to take and the large number of character cards available mean that each game should play very differently. Definitely a challenge to play well

Finally got a play in with three players. Good game, but a steep learning curve, which makes the game play a bit slow the first time. Need to play this one again soon.

The geometric permutations in turn choices and future planning that occur with cards lending strength is a fantastic feature and I would argue the central masterpiece of the game. Since you'll only see a fraction of the cards in any given game, game engines are rarely even close to being the same which is really nice. Great game at 1 and 2 players, 3 is good as well (4 drags, and 5 is a death sentence in terms of game speed, even the rule book sort of warns against it). The mental oompf required to handle the limited/governed engine building and the resource management lends itself to players occasionally developing a dire case of the "so smarts" (where you "were thinking you were so smart that you were going to do XYZ only to miscalculate what you actually needed").

The two greatest dings I have against it stem from time and cards. This is a game of "who can get the best combo engine going fastest and then ride that super-hard." That the game takes way longer than you expect it to, and I've seen 3p games run as much as 2.5 hours at the top end... Second, if everyone doesn't stay together, the last third/quarter of the game is a waste (and it should be called) which is rather anti-climactic, especially if someone goofs or it's taking a long time to run through. In some ways, I'd almost just concede if there was some form of honor in that, and I think this is why you don't seen engine-building games that let you run the engine for a long time because you just build the gap in terms of positioning. Sort of an oddity, it's possible (but I would argue not probable) to ignore the extra characters in terms of acquiring them and still get to victory. I keep tinkering with that, but find the longitudinal planning of what you want your engine to be early enough in the game to take advantage of it exceedingly difficult (especially with card wiping and new cards coming out). A minor ding might be that it's only interactive in terms of the resource draft (which is most needed and manageable at 2p, above that and it's sort of negligible and turns into a multi-player solitaire game of sorts). In general, a 4 or 5, occasionally hitting 6, but not as a rule of thumb.

Beautiful art and fresh gameplay...I like it...but I don´t like the smell of the components ;)...

Mainly solo

This started as a convention-only game that we finally bought ourselves. I think it's a unique game in our collection.

very nice artwork, very thinky and deep game. I can see a lot of replayability due to the cards changing all the times

Benjamin Bord Cedrick Chaboussit Uwe Rosenberg Bauza & Cathala Martin Wallace Mr Hunter Mrs Hunter Mr Cron Mrs Cron Mr Alex Mr Peat Lewis & Clark Stickers (BGG Store)