Game Play Review - Trekking the World

Trekking the World is a game published by Underdog Games. The premise of the game is for players to take on the role of trekkers racing against each other to visit the world's most popular destinations, thereby proving they are the most experienced traveler. Once all but one region bonus token is claimed, or a single player tours their fifth destination, the end of the game is triggered. The player with the most victory points is declared the winner.

This post is broken into the following 3 sections, feel free to jump directly to one:

1. General summary - consisting of information about overall enjoyment, theme, replayability, and upgrades
2. Complexity - consisting of information about the rulebook, setup, player turns, and overall learning curve
3. Player turns - consisting of game type, game flow, rule you are likely to miss, and favorite aspect

Number of players we had: 4
Our play time (not including setup): 1 hour 10 minutes

Overall enjoyment

Overall our group really enjoys playing this game for several reasons. First, this game can be set up in about 10 minutes and is easy to teach to new players. Second, the destination cards have fantastic drawings of each location on one side in addition to descriptions explaining why the chosen destinations are worth visiting on the back of the card.

Another reason we like this game is because while it is easy to learn, it can be more challenging to win. There are several things that make it difficult to gain victory points. Aside from the randomization of souvenir cubes, which can help players gain victory points, the greatest hurdles are presented by the movement rules.

When players are moving around the board to collect souvenir cubes and possibly Take a Tour, both of which can earn victory points, players are NOT allowed to move through or land on any location occupied by another player. Additionally, players cannot use the same connection location twice in a single turn. Lastly, players must move the exact amount of spaces as the value of cards they discard to move that turn. This means you cannot discard a card with a value of three and move only two connections. We feel the movement rules add the perfect amount of difficulty to the game.

We also like that Trekking the World scales well based on the number of players. If you have two or three players, there are several locations on the board that will not have souvenir cubes placed on them. This maintains a steady difficulty level for players, regardless of the number playing.  Whether players are working to acquire the most souvenir cubes of a certain color, or to build sets of each color, both of which are worth victory points, the challenge stays relatively the same no matter how many players you have.

If we had to pick something about this game that frustrated us it would be how much the value of the region bonus tokens varies. Finding out at the end of a game that one you acquired is only worth two points makes it feel like you wasted the effort to collect it.

Theme

The theme of this game is fun, feeling educational and adventurous at the same time. The game board, the trek cards and the journey cards are all brightly colored. Best of all are the 48 destination cards. Each destination card has a drawing of the location on one side as well as a detailed description of the location and what makes it special on the other side. The theme of this game makes it perfect for anyone who likes to travel or is even looking for ideas of places that they should see in their lifetime.

Replayability

There are several things that increase the replayability of this game, including:

1. There are 48 destination cards and a single game will never use all of them.
2. There are two sets of six journey cards. Each game uses one card from each set which adds a decent amount of variability to the game play as "Journey" is one of the available actions for players on their turns.
3. The souvenir cubes are randomized across the board each game which means some games it will be easy to have the most of a single color, while other games it will be easier to have sets of each color of cubes. Having the most of one color and sets of colors earn victory points.
4. Only six of 10 region bonus tokens are used each game. These are randomized during the game setup and have different values assigned to them.

Upgrades

As far as I know there are no upgrades for this game. However, it is worth mentioning the insert that comes with the game. The insert is really great and all of the components except the game board fit into it. It also has a lid so nothing comes loose when the game is being stored. Even the coins come in a small 2-part removeable tray so they can be set above the destination cards for a quicker game set up.

Rule book

The rule book is very well organized, easy to follow, and is less than 10 pages. Additionally, the rule book has quite a few images explaining how to set up the game and demonstrates examples of game play. While the back page does not have a summary of game play, there are player aides included with the game so it really isn't necessary.

Setup

Setting up Trekking the World takes about 10 minutes. It is an easy series of steps and it scales based on the number of players so you will need to pay attention to where you place souvenir cubes when you have less than four players.

Turns

Player turns go quickly. Players begin with an optional fly to any available airport if they ended their last turn on an airport. Next, players must move if they have any trek cards in their hand. Once players have moved, they take one of the three following actions:

1. Draw two - draw two additional trek cards. These can be from the four revealed cards or by selecting an unknown card from the top of the deck.
2. Take a Tour - collect one of the revealed destination cards by being on that location and discarding trek cards with the required symbols.
3. Journey - discard the required number of trek cards with matching icons to use one of the two journey cards randomly selected during game setup. Journey cards provide varying actions like moving directly to an airport, drawing cards, moving a certain number of connections and more.

Overall learning curve

The overall learning curve of this game is low. Each turn players must move if they can and then they take one of three actions. One of the most challenging aspects is acquiring a tour card. Planning is definitely required in order to land on the location of one of the revealed destination cards on a turn where you will have the required cards to take the tour after having moved (which requires using one or more of your existing cards).

There have been many times when we have managed to plan taking a tour perfectly while forgetting we had to use a card to move and now don't have enough cards!

Play type

Trekking the World is a symmetrical game with elements of card drafting, fulfilling contracts and set collection. There are several ways to earn victory points, but all include moving around the board. Moving to new connections enables players to collect souvenir cubes, take tours to collect destination cards, and collect region bonus tokens if they are the player to take the last souvenir cube in any region.

Game flow

Player turns pass fairly quickly in this game as players regularly spend their main action collecting cards. Additionally, there are only three main actions to choose from so players typically know what they are going to do on their turn. If another player blocks your path and prevents you from taking an expected action, you can choose to use one of the journey cards which provide other actions or draw trek cards to help with future turns.

Rule you are likely to forget/miss

The one rule you are likely to forget or miss is that the game end is triggered when any one player has taken five tours aka acquired five destination cards. Once destination cards are collected by players it can be easy to forget to pay attention to how many each player has in their stack.

Note: Game end is also triggered when five out of the six bonus region tokens have been acquired, but this is easier for players to notice.

Favorite aspect

Our favorite aspect about this game is how easy the game flows, as well as the detailed descriptions on the destination cards. The descriptions really are great reminders of some of the wonderful places in the world to visit. We also appreciate how easy it is to set this game up and teach it to new players. Lastly, player turns are pretty quick so the game does not drag at all.

Trekking the World is a very fun, bright and colorful game that is extremely universal. I think it would make a great game for almost any player group. Not only does it scale well for the number of players, but it can also be played very strategically by blocking other players from getting to certain locations, or more passively by going about your business and collecting cubes and taking tours while avoiding other players.