Goodness gracious me, just me
EXPEDITION TO NEWDALE
Designer: Alexander Pfister | Publisher: Lookout Games
Before we start it is worth pointing out that, because of the time it came to review Expedition to Newdale, was reviewed exclusively on solo play. Luckily it’s almost exactly the same game, although, a lot quicker and frankly, a lot tougher. Beating your friends, or rather, outrunning them in the victory points race is one thing, hitting the goals set out to you by the solo game in Alexander Pfister’s recent follow up to Oh My Goods! is and entirely different bucket of coal, and flour, that can be chained into bread…
Expedition… is a heavier game than Oh My Goods! and comes with a host of boards to play with, rather than just cards – although, there are a lot of those too. Following on from Escape to Canyon Brook, your adventure to produce things continues. Why? It barely matters, but it’s something to do with stopping some ice giants killing everyone by using diplomacy.
But we’re not here for the narrative, as novel as it is.
It’s a campaign Eurogame about constructing building that can then apply the randomly drawn labour market to certain effects, and more interestingly, be used to chain together certain materials into others. So, you can take your cows to the abattoir to produce meat, or coal and flour to produce bread, for example. Doing so means that your coal, worth one coin while sitting on the mine card of your player-board engine, is now worth five on the bakery. You’re much richer than you were by the application of labour.
Solo play works like a pleasantly frustrating puzzle. It teases at your brain in a satisfying way for the most part, but occasionally veers into unfair ‘tough luck’ situations. This usually comes from not being able to build your engine quick enough with plenty of cards to generate the goods required to meet the quota. There are actions that you can take to increase the cards in your hand, but because the game is played over only a handful of rounds using the (cleverly) build event decks, these actions are often a sign you’re just not going to make ends meet in the particular run through. It’s fine, but just having a bad hand with few options can be off-putting.
That, however, is the only gripe with the game. The sense of progress is palpable, you change locations and situations regularly, you meet characters that, while you don’t get to know and love exactly, do become something like familiar faces during play. And most of the time, like any good Eurogame, the disappointment is only with yourself – when you realise you should have done something else already.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
WE SAY
An extremely good, light, enginebuilding Eurogame with great depth and challenge at its heart. The campaign elements expand the longevity of the game and make the solo mode feel like something worth working through.
WHATS IN THE BOX
◗ 3 Double-sided game boards
◗ 1 Action board
◗ 4 Double-sided player boards
◗ 40 Bonus tiles
◗ 8 Progress tiles
◗ 4 Bridge tiles
◗ 4 Victory point markers
◗ 1 Winners’ cup
◗ 44 Hourses
◗ 16 Action tokens
◗ 4 Ship tokens
◗ 22 Figures
◗ 50 Goods markers
◗ 1 Bag
◗ 1 Sticker sheet
◗ 220 Cards
◗ 1 Chronicle book
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED OH MY GOODS!…
The previous instalments, while a bit lighter, are a good indication of whether you’ll gain pleasure from chaining your good together, or find it all a bit tedious.