- Publisher : Lucky Duck Games
- Designer(s) : Dariusz Mindur
- Artist(s) : Rodrigo Camilo Alves De Almeida, Kevin Sidharta, Inês Toczyska, Ariadna Żytniewska
- Players : 2–4
- Playing time : 45 Min
- Weight BGG : 2.00
What's this?
Borealis: Arctic Expeditions is a card and resource management game in which players take on the roles of teams of scientists setting out to observe animals in their natural habitat. The goal is to best organize these observations by deploying scientists to different locations, while optimizing movement and card choices.
How do you play?
A game unfolds in a series of rounds where players take turns. On their turn, a player must choose one action from two options :
🔹 Observe an animal
- Play an Animal card
- The player places a card from their hand in a location where the requested scientists are located.
- The cards are stacked up in each location, leaving some information visible.
- Move the scientists
- The arrows on the map indicate how to move scientists to adjacent locations or to camps.
- Those sent to a camp remain stuck there until a specific action is taken.
- Progressing along the exploration track: If the vehicle on the map matches the one on the track, the player advances their marker.
- Recruiting a new card: The player chooses a card from those available.
🔹 Regroup
- Discard cards (optional)
- Draw as many cards as were discarded
- Gain resources based on the number of scientists in the camps
- To bring all its scientists together in one place
🔹 End of game and score:
The game ends when a player has placed 7 cards in a single location . The winner is the one who accumulates the most points, calculated according to the series of animals of the same species per location, progress on the exploration tracks, bonus points on cards, completed objectives and shared score cards .
Is it good?
Borealis offers an original mechanic where the movement of your scientists is dictated by the cards you play. This encourages you to optimize each move to place the right animals in the right place: indeed, the more animals of the same species you group in the same column, the more points you score.
Don’t forget to play cards showing the correct modes of transport to advance your flag on the exploration track—a significant source of points. Finally, the third crucial element to watch out for is the objective and scoring cards.
Despite its apparent simplicity at first glance, the game will really make your brain “smoke” as it demands rigorous planning and optimization.
One could criticize it, however, for a theme that takes a backseat to the mechanics, despite attractive illustrations and high-quality wooden scientist meeples. A certain repetitiveness can also become apparent over time; the game might lack depth for more experienced players or seem a bit too abstract and mechanical.
In summary , Borealis is a fluid and clever card management game that stands out thanks to its original worker placement system. It’s a title to watch for fans of planning, optimization, and set collection, looking to maximize their score each turn.
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Borealis Arctic Expeditions review
Positives
- Interesting travel management
- Simple but effective mechanics
- Satisfactory optimization sensations
- Fast and smooth laps
- Quality materials
- Several scoring
Negatives
- Interaction was fairly weak
- Theme absent
- A feeling of repetitiveness is possible given the limited number of actions.
- It remains very mechanical and abstract.
