Designed by: Reiner Knizia
Through the Desert is – despite the presence of a desert, and many, many camels – a game of area control. Before play begins the board is seeded with a number of oases (the trees) and watering holes, which have points (valued 1-3) placed on them. The game begins with each player placing one of the five camel colours (with their own rider, to show ownership) into an empty spot somewhere on the board, before continuing with players taking turns to add two more camels to their growing caravans, with multiple point-scoring goals in mind:
Placing a camel next to an oasis scores 5points, but bear in mind if you already have a camel next to the same oasis of the same colour, you can’t claim this bonus again. Placing a camel on a watering hole simply hoovers up the points placed there. Creating a caravan route that blocks off a part of the board from the other players – with no other players within the barricaded area – will score you a point per hex of the claimed area: tricky to pull off, but with huge potential gains. The final way to score points is by having the longest caravans of a given colour (10 points!) when the game ends, which is usually when the camels of any colour run out.
Like so many of Reiner Knizia’s games, simple rules lead to some rather tricky decisions, with every turn an agonising choice between what you gain and what you lose. Because you cannot place a camel of your own next to an opponent’s camel of the same colour, it’s possible to find yourself hemmed in and unable to expand. It’s possible to block others off from a rewarding part of the desert. And it’s possible to hasten the end of the game in order to prevent opponents taking the camels they need – play them yourself, so they run out. Most points at the end is pronounced best tribe.
Plenty, plenty, plenty! There's no fighting, and no removing of pieces, but how the placement of pieces play out on the board is very much a battle.
Low to moderate. The rules are easy to understand, even for fairly young children. But there will no doubt be the odd pause while someone assesses their options.
Moderate, for the same reason as above.
There's a little variation in set-up, but the variety to be had in Through the Desert is very much about the players and the if-that-then-this type knock-on effects of every decision you make.
2-5
Players
10+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
This reminded me of the modern classic Babylonia; though I prefer Babylonia, Through the Desert is certainly easier to get your head around in terms of rules, but both have that very Knizian flavour: easy enough to grasp the rules, but the time when your best move is obvious is an infrequent occurrence, as the overlapping ways that both you and your opponents score points come into play with every decision you make. It's a bit of a nightmare for the colour-blind with the curious decision to go with pastel colours for the camels - they look like ice cream flavours, though recent editions may have fixed that - and some may find the multi-player puzzle feel not to their liking. But if you're okay with these possibly shortcomings, in terms of gameplay it's very engaging, and always demands your attention.