Explorers - Board Game Review

[Music] welcome to allies our enemies this time we are looking at explorers designed by the prolific and usually excellent phil walker harding explorers is a flip and right game for one to four players in explorers you'll be exploring a randomized map crossing off squares as you search your way to gems secret temples wild horses treasure maps and produce in your 20-minute quest to out-map your rivals but how exactly do you do that let's take a look at the start of the game players decide the layout of the map together this can be any alignment as long as all players end up with the same map each round players will take turns flipping an exploration card and choosing one of the sides depicting a region prairie water mountain or desert one side faces the first player and the other side faces everybody else players then cross out any three squares of the region type that's facing them as long as the new squares are adjacent to previously explored squares by doing this players are trying to stretch out across the lands finding food sources and gems for points keys to open temples and horses and maps that provide exploration bonuses after four rounds players add up their points to see who mapped the best the variability here is through the roof with the box posting over 1 million combinations on top of the variable map which is made up of four of the eight tiles each facing in any of the four directions the three key ways of scoring are all reversible and when you crank it up to expert mode you can also add one to three bonus scoring tiles which are all hidden on the back of all the map tiles with these players can gain end game points for crossing off types of squares not crossing off squares or crossing off certain patterns or areas and these can all really change the game try playing without collecting gems for instance or trying to get every space in a horizontal line while still trying to score your cities and temples and collect your food it can really make it necessary to map out your mapping phil walker harding is a master at doing a lot with a little which tends to make his games as affordable as they are approachable and this one is no different the player boards are particularly clever with slots that fit the map and scoring tiles everything pops neatly into place it all fits perfectly nothing is too tight or too loose the pens work well and everything is nicely glossy to make it all writable it is however byo eraser and the erasing isn't perfect i've got a feeling there will be a solid shelf life for the glossy cardboard to be written and rewritten but if you don't give it a good once over you may start to get some lasting smudges still at the low cost you will get more than your money's worth before that day comes [Music] explorers works for one to four players and you won't see a lot of difference at any count the game will always take 28 turns because play is simultaneous game time will generally remain right around that 20 minute mark with more players you have a bit less choice of region so maps might become more valuable but you also have less chance of other players noticing you and purposely not giving you the tile you desperately need to get to that temple there's also a solo mode that is basically a point challenge with some random card draws to simulate other player flips and it works perfectly fine phil walker harding already had one groundbreaking entry into the flip and ride genre with silver and golden explorer sits right alongside it it is everything you want in a flip and write quick and clever with plenty of scoring options and some fun decisions each turn that will inevitably take you down different paths at 20 minutes it's easy to cram a few games into a session and you will almost certainly find yourself wanting to switch up the map change out some scoring tiles and go again if you are a fan of the flip and right genre or of phil walker harding's games in general this is very likely to be a solid fit and that is it are there any new flipping right or rolling right games that are on your radar let us know in the comments and please also like and subscribe and hopefully we will see you all next time for another game