Trail to the Temple

• Designer: Reiner Knizia
• Publisher: Mindware
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45hhO0M
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In this competitive exploration game, players lead an expedition into a lost city hidden deep within the jungles of Honduras. The expedition splits into two groups: explorers navigating the jungle on foot and drones mapping the terrain from above. Players move explorers, collecting jungle tokens as you land on them. But their point values are hidden until the end of the game. When the expedition concludes, token values are revealed based on the final positions of both explorers and drones. Careful planning and smart positioning throughout the game determine the winner.

To set up, place the LIDAR board in the center of the table and the drones on the start spaces.  The temple is placed at the other end of the board.  Now shuffle the 75 Jungle tokens and make a meandering face-up path of tiles.  At the end of the line (furthest away from the temple), place the three Explorer movers.  Now from this start point, place a Location Tile underneath every 12th tile (i.e. at tile 12, 24,36,48 and 60).   Shuffle the deck of cards and deal each player 5 cards.

On a turn, the active player plays a card from their hand, then moves the corresponding explorer the number of tiles shown (skipping any spaces occupied by other explorers).  At the end of movement, the player collects the tile the explorer is on.   If you take a tile on a Location tile – after you take your tile, reveal the Location tile and apply its special action.

Types of Jungle tiles include:

• Artifact Tokens – 1 to 3 artifacts of a single color.  At the end of the game, you will score points for each artifact based on how far the drone of the same color has moved
• Drone – move any drone 2 or 3 spaces forward
• Explorer token – at the end of the game, score points for the depicted explorer if it finishes first or second on the path
• Supply crate – score 1 point per crate shown (ranges from 2-4)

To end the turn, a new card is drawn to replenish the hand to 5 cards.  Check to see if there are any tiles which have been passed by all explorers.  If these tiles have artifacts on them, move the corresponding drone ahead 1 space per artifact discarded.  Other tile types are simply discarded.

The game continues until either an explorer or a drone reaches the temple.  The player who moves the first piece onto the temple will score a 5VP bonus.  The current round is finished so that players have the same number of turns.  Players then use the score pad to calculate their score.

• Explorer points – determine the explorer furthest forward and then next furthest.  Score the tiles  for each of those – the further explorer getting the larger score on the left and then second explorer getting the smaller score on the right
• Determine artifact points – look at the drones on the board, the two which are furthest forward score 2 points per artifact in their color.  The next two score 1 point per artifact in their color.  The last two colors score nothing.

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most supply crates.

My thoughts on the game

So if you’ve been in the hobby enough – this one line summation may be enough to tell you if you will like this game or not:  “Imagine if Dr Knizia had mashed together the tile collection from Tutenkamen with the racing track of Honeybears…”    If you know both of those games, well I’ve taught you nearly all of the rules!    

As you move the three explorers on the track, you’re trying to pick up the best tiles for your strategy.  Obviously, some tiles are strictly better than others (i.e. 3 red artifacts are always better than 1 artifact) – but your movement is sometimes limited by the numbers on the cards that you have in your hand at the moment.  You do get a hand size of 5 cards, so you usually have a number of different options; but in the end, you have to just rely on the options available to you.

If you need to manipulate the drones, you can spend a whole turn taking a drone tile to move your chosen drone forward – the downside is that you won’t get a tile that will score for the end of the game.  I do also like the strategy involved in abandoning artifact tiles as any tiles not picked up will move their respective drones forward.  There is room for some clever play if you choose to move the furthest back explorer if the tiles work out in your favor.

The mechanisms involved are quite simple, but the combination of the varied cards in your hand and the possible types of tiles you can pick up give you small but interesting decisions each turn. From my early plays, I’ve seen a high risk strategy that concentrates on a single type of tile – but this can also spectacularly fail if your target tile doesn’t score well!  The payoffs for the explorer bets appear to be the highest, but I think this might also be the hardest outcome to actually control.  As you would expect from Dr. Knizia, there is a good balance between the risks and possible payoffs of the tiles.

This is meant to be a simple family game – but man, the tie breaker rules are super clunky.  I’m not sure how I would have made it easier, but I’m fairly certain that most 8 year olds wouldn’t be able to figure out the tiebreaker rules on the drones.  Surely it would have just been easier to arrange drones from left to right based on arrival in a space and have that be the tiebreaker?  Or just make it all friendly?  Anyways, as we’re all adult gamers, we figured out the tiebreaker rules just fine.

I do like the physical components of the game, and I warn you that it is a surprising table hog.  You really do need a LOT of table space in order to lay out all the tiles at the start of the game.  Also, lots of kudos for delivering everything pre-punched and nestled into the vac tray.  Other than the tiebreaker rules, this is something that should be easy to learn and just about anyone can enjoy.  The scoring isn’t super intuitive, but as long as there is one gamer at the table, it should work out ok.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45hhO0M