It’s time to explore the world and to do so we are going to take a tour. But this 3 day tour isn’t just any old tour, today we are going to take a tour through history to experience many amazing events from the past! But don’t get too far off the calendar and make sure we stick to the itinerary so we can be the best explorers of the bunch!
Trekking Through History is designed by Charlie Bink with illustration by Eric Hibbler. It is published by Underdog Games and plays 2-4 players for 30-60 minutes.
Overview
In Trekking Through History players take on the role of time travelers moving across three days of travel. Moving through history requires some work, so let’s talk about what this game brings to the table!
Players will take a collection of four Itineraries and select one each day to play. They have a Crystal Tank to store their Time Crystals and a Pocket Watch to count their time on the clock. Each day you will have 12 hours to explore with. The main board is set with cards from the first day deck, ancestor cards and the supply tray is kept close.
Turns are decided based on who is furthest behind on the time and that player will take a full turn and the next player will be whoever is furthest behind. In this way player may end up taking multiple turns in a row and others may go multiple turns before they do.
On your turn you will first choose a card from the six in the Departure row. These cards show placed you will visit this turn. You may also take an Ancestor card as a wild that copies the last card you chose in your stack. Each card has a year that it took place, a title and some type of benefits in the form of tokens that are either the colored Experience tiles, a Wild Experience or a Time Crystal. You will then move your Pocket Watch the distance on the clock that your card shows. You also gain the Experience tokens as benefits and slot them on to your Itinerary card from the top down. If you cover victory points, you gain those. If you cover a Time Crystal you get those as well.
Finally your card must go on your Trek. If it is a card that fits in chronological order you add it to the Trek you already have. If it is earlier than your current Trek and then isn’t in order, your current one is finished and you start a new Trek. These will continue to accumulate until the end of the game.
At the end of each day when each player have reached the 12 spot on the Clock you will reset the cards with the next day’s cards and get a new Itinerary to use. At the end of the third day, players will calculate their final scores. You will take the points you have gained already on the track from history cards and Itineraries, extra Time Crystals and then add up the points from your individual Treks. Each Trek grouping awards more points based on the amount of cards that are in it. The player with the most points wins!
Impressions
Trekking Through History is the third game in a “Trekking” series from Underdog Games. I have enjoyed the others ones and especially liked the mechanics of Trekking the World. Here we have a different style of game that holds some of the same ideas but gives us a new way to play it.
First of all, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about how great the production of this game is. Underdog Games continues to give us some of the most well-designed and illustrated games in the market, and History is not an exception. The art style is great, the Time Crystals and Elements are high quality and the storage from GameTrayz is, as always, the top of the line. There is nothing in this game that I think could have been made or look better. And as the cherry on top, the game board is a game mat, a well illustrated and designed neoprene mat right in the box! This game is deluxe in every way and I love it.
The gameplay is straightforward here-grab cards, manage your time as a resource well and score points. I like the Iteniaries and being able to select when and which one to use as a little extra challenge. The set collection of the cards means we aren’t all grabbing for the same thing, and you have to balance the higher time penalty cards with the Elements you may need. Time Crystals give a player a chance to decrease the time cost giving you a chance to grab more cards for your Trek. Do you go big Treks for the points or do you try and knock the points out on your board-these questions make it a fun tug of war with how and when to play your choices.
And the history on these cards is something I have to mention as well. How refreshing to learn new things on these cards and not get the same history we hear over and over in our culture. I enjoyed hearing about other countries and experiences in history from around the world, and even detailed about time periods I thought I knew. How cool is Suffrajitsu?? If you don’t know what that is, this is a great place to learn about it. I would compare this to a game for those wondering to games like Timeline, Century Spice Road and Tokaido-each bringing a small piece of what the do to this title. Timeline for the history, Century for the resource and card collection and Tokaido for the way you move and decide player order.
Overall
Overall I really enjoyed learning and playing this game. The eyes of a time traveler learning new and important parts of our history was a fun role to take on as you ventured into the theme of this one. The gameplay is smooth and rewards strategic play while at the same time being easy enough that you could jump right in and play without having it be a brain burner of a game. Trekking Through History was a game I really enjoyed and one I think you and your gaming group would as well. Make sure to check it out!
Here is a link to the game on Amazon (we make no profit from this, just making it easier for you to find the game!):
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