Who doesn’t love a good treasure hunt? Today you and all of your fellow Archaeologists have come together to assemble some of the most valuable antiquities and treasures from around the world while keeping them out of the hands of private collectors. Will you earn the most prestige amongst your opponents? Will you be the best of the rest? Let’s find out!
Antiquity Quest is published by Grandpa Beck’s Games, designed by Harrison and Jessica Beck with art by Apryl Stott, deigned for 2-8 players.
Overview and Gameplay
Collect. Combine. Complete. With those three simple words you get the basic gameplay of Antiquity Quest. Your goal is to score the most points from your collections. Collections are made from Antiquity and Treasure cards in various combinations.
There are 6 suits of Antiquity cards, each with a different color. Each color represents a different civilization with 25 of each suit numbered 1-5. 5 copies of each card for a total of 150 numbered cards. There are also 18 wild Antiquities, 3 of each civilization.
There are also Treasure cards that are more rare and more valuable than the Antiquity cards. There are 35 total, 5 different types with 7 of each.
Finally there are 2 character cards, Professor Nigel Remington and Tess Wynter. Remington allows you to draw three cards from the deck and Tess allows you to remove all the cards from the discard pile. There are 6 Remington and 4 Wynter cards in the deck.
To begin each player is given 2 piles of 10 cards each, one face down and one as their current hand. The face down pile is their cache.
On your turn, a player has three steps that must be taken in order. These turns are:
1-Draw
2-Play
3-Discard
In Draw, the active player will either draw 2 cards from the draw pile or pick up all the cards in the discard pile and add them to their hand.
In Play, you have the option to play as many cards as you would like or no cards at all. Cards can be played to start a collection, add to a collection or add to another players’ collections. You may also play a Remington card here to draw more cards into your hand. If you play out your hand during a turn you are able to pick up your cache and continue to play. You can only play the last card ion your hand if it would complete a 5th collection at minimal.
Finally is Dicard where a player must discard a card from their hand face up. If it is the Tess card, the entire discard pile is removed from the game.
The game is built on how well you are able to accumulate and protect your collections. You are constantly trying to build up the value of your own while at the same time trying to decrease the value of your opponents’ collections. Perfect collections are the hardest to obtain but reward you with the most victory points. Standard collections are easier to put together and still give high points and the mixed collections are very easy to put together but are worth the least. Often times in the game you are trying to sabotage someone’s attempt at a perfect collection by adding cards to make it a mixed collection.
Collections have simple rules. When you start them, there must be at least 3 cards from your hand or more to begin one. You can use Antiquities that are all of the same civilization or all Treasures or a combination of those. You may continue to add to them in future turns, adding Treasures to any type of collection or Antiquity cards to incomplete Antiquity or mixed collections. Adding to other players’ collections will help you get rid of cards you cannot use and/or potentially sabotage your opponents collections. Someone going for a perfect collection can suddenly find themselves with a mixed collection, cutting the value way down.
Perfect and Standard Collections can be completed, but keep in mind the Mixed collections can always be added to. This is a great way to unload cards you did not want. The first player to go out earns a bonus 500 points and all other players get one more turn at that point to finish the game.
Impressions
Antiquity Quest is the newest addition to the Grandpa Beck’s line of games. For any of you that follow me on social media you know I love their games. Skull King and Cover Your Assets are some of my favorite go-to card games to pull out in any situation. When I played Antiquity Quest, my expectations were already high with that pedigree of games in their portfolio. Antiquity Quest is a fine addition to that collection of card games.
The good news is I really enjoyed this game. I like the art and design of these cards. Looking at the simplicity of gameplay, you can jump right in with teaching this and most players of varying age and experience catch on quickly. The set collection is a rush as you look around the table and see what others are trying to put together themselves. The “take-that” aspects of the game are strong enough to bring on player interaction but not so punishing that it completely ruins someone’s game. I like that about all of the Grandpa Beck’s games I have played. There is some fun back and forth that lets you take on and attack other players but it never feels incredibly cut-throat in nature.
Antiquity Quest is certainly going to be one of the top card games in my personal rotation and one I can see rising towards the top of the Grandpa Beck collection. Harrison and Jessica Beck are another great addition to the game designers in this family that continues to quietly and consistently make solid card based games for everyone. I love how easy these games are to introduce to people and the enthusiasm they bring to the table. There are no better games for player interaction that is a little bit mean while still a ton of fun. I highly recommend this one for fans of Grandpa Beck’s, fans of cards games in general or anyone looking to add a great card game to your collection!
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