QUEST FOR EL DORADO, THE (2017)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	PUBLISHER
2-4	30-60 mins	Reiner Knizia	Ravensburger

In this 2-4 player deck building race game, you use your team of adventurers to cross Rivers, traverse jungle, and pass through Villages, all to reach the fabled city of El Dorado before anyone else.

But as the game goes on you’ll need to hire more powerful cards from the market, so that when you reach the tougher terrain towards the end of your journey, your deck will be better at handling the obstacles.

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THE QUEST FOR EL DORADO appears to be a straight forward game on the surface.

But once you’re underway, you’ll look at your hand of cards and pick a route before realising that you also have to think about where you need to go next. You need to remember the cards you’ve been adding to know what you can handle on your next turn. It’s no use stopping before a river if you have no Paddle cards in your deck.

And while your starting Explorer with a single machete does well at the beginning, you’ll need to have purchased the Pioneer card or the Giant Machete card to make good headway in the late game.

That’s one of the things I really like here. Because the game is a race from one end of the modular board to the other, it means that any turn you stop to buy cards, you’re not moving.

There’s a great push and pull of slow now to be fast later, or just get as far as you can now.

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Does it have flaws?

Well, struggling to keep up, or losing momentum because of the cards you’ve drawn can be rough. You chose your purchases, there is little control over when they’ll actually show up.

And the map tiles contain some chock points that can be used to others disadvantage and force people to go the long way.

Overall THE QUEST FOR EL DORADO is a good intro to Deck Building, and a fun race if you don’t take it too seriouly. The 2-player varient is okay, but it’s much better with a full compliment of 4.