Relic Expedition

In Relic Expedition players are racing to be the first to collect a matching set of relics, in a jungle environment that expands as you explore it. It’s a game with a lot of luck, and a little bit of feistiness…

All players start in a shared area, and on their turn they roll two dice – one die decides how many action points you have on your turn (between 2 and 4) and the other determines which, if any, animals can move. The action points are used to explore the jungle, which is made up of hexes that are overturned randomly. Some hexes are easier to explore than others…

The animals crop up on certain hexes as the players explore, and if an animal (snake, panther, boar or monkey) is present anywhere on the board when the active players rolls it, that animal must move – up to two hexes. The player to the active player’s left chooses how the animal moves. If it encounters any of the players explorer pieces, it messes with them – stealing things from the players ‘backpacks’ (helpful stuff, or relics) and making them miss turns. BUT – if there is more than one of that animal type hanging around, then more players get to move them, so the animals represent a potentially brutal spoiling tactic built into the game.

Players can use their action points to go to the supply line, which gives them helpful things to negate the animals (sedatives to put them to sleep, traps to trap them) and they may find bananas around the jungle which can be used to distract monkeys. Everyone has a backpack  (represented by a rack) that can hold up to eight items and other things will come out of the supply line too, such as the raft, climbing gear or lamp: these bits of kit allow you to explore relic-rich areas such as the river, mountain and cave.

As soon as you have either four relics of the same symbol or four of the same colour, you just need to get to the helicopter pad (marked by an H on hexes) and fly away in order to win!