Trekking Through History is a pure optimization game

What is a board game? Trekking through history ?

Board the time machine and experience an extraordinary journey where you will relive the great events of humanity. Choose your destinations and their order carefully to make it an amazing adventure.

Available from 10 years of age, for 1 to 4 players and games lasting 30 to 60 minutes, it is a game with simple rules, despite the appearance, but with a theme that is unfortunately completely outdated.

Published by Underdog Games, Trekking through historyis a game by Charlie Bink, illustrated by Eric Hibbeler, and sold at a price of €36.95 in Philibert.

How do you play it?

IN Trekking through history , you don’t go on one trip through time, but on several, grouped into three circles. Everything takes place in the same way, only the suggested maps that represent different periods of our history are changed.

A turn in the game is very quick, as it simply consists of taking a story card from the six dealt in the middle of the table. They have several characteristics: a date representing a historical event (from -37,000, the oldest cave drawings, to 1994, Nelson Mandela’s choice), a duration until there, and rewards in the form of tokens of different colors.

You obviously don’t choose your card that way.

Each round we are given a route, a kind of guide that earns victory points and bonuses if we follow it, placing the corresponding reward tokens there. All routes are different and require different chip combinations to get the most out of them.

Duration must also be considered, as we only have 12 hours each round for our trips. A small pocket watch serves as a counter and determines the order of moves: it is the turn of the player who is farthest behind, the one who has used the least time (and not according to the order on the table, as usual). So it can happen that the same player plays several times in a row, until he overtakes the others.

Finally, it is important to travel through time chronologically, because until we break the time continuity of our travels, we continue to accumulate cards. And at the end of the game, the longer our different journeys were, the more points we won.

The game ends after the third round, and the player with the highest total number of points wins.

Why play Trekking through history?

This is a somewhat surprising game. At first glance and considering the hardware, it seems quite complex: lots of cards, lots of tokens, icons everywhere. However, it surprises with its simplicity: in return we simply take a card of six possibilities. And that’s all.

But choosing this card gives it all the flavor.

Trekking through history is therefore a pure and hard optimization game. Every choice, every decision must be carefully considered in order to get the maximum benefit. This refers to the reward tokens we receive, the dates of our trips that must follow each other. And above all the time needed to travel, potentially instant replay or giving priority to others if we are no longer interested in the remaining cards.

Especially this mechanic makes the game interesting. Used from time to time, in a few games, but works great every time. Patchwork is its proudest representative.

At least it is like that with two players, possibly with three. With four people, on the other hand, your game can quickly become difficult and you may have to wait 10 to 15 minutes before playing again if you are too far ahead of the others. We obviously do not recommend this configuration.

The two of us preferred to play Trekking through history, since the games are then fast, the moves are dynamic, and you can try to block the opponent by taking cards that match him. With more people, it’s too complicated to consider.

A few words about the equipment, it’s really good. There are nice illustrations of different events and some historical text on the back. But was it really necessary for those dozens of pawns to be made of plastic? That the center panel is neoprene? Wooden blocks and a cardboard tray, anything more classic, would do well.

However, the biggest flaw of the game lies in the complete disconnection of the theme, although very interesting and rich, and the mechanics. At no point do you feel like you are traveling back in time. And the cards could have been completely blank, with just a few icons and numbers, and we wouldn’t have felt the difference. A bit of a shame and disappointing, we have to admit.

Apart from this aspect, if you are looking for an optimization game with simple rules, Trekking through historyis a completely pleasant proposition. The mechanics work well, the games are enjoyable and fast (except with four players), and we want to try to try to be better again. On the other hand, if thematic immersion is important to you, move on.

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