"The Adventurers - a pulp boardgame" Topic

I picked up a copy of AEG's "The Adventurers" last week.

It is an Indiana Jones-style, tomb-looting boardgame. It has 12 very cartoonish adventurer miniatures, plastic wall pieces, and a large rock that rolls through the game, crushing slow/greedy players.

Basically, your character decides on a route through a room with collapsing walls, a room with lava traps (avoided by deciphering heiroglyphs), a connecting corridor with the rolling boulder, a river with a waterfall that you can get swept over, or a rickety bridge. Along the way, you can pick up treasure, or pick locks to get bigger treasures, but more treasure means less speed; less speed means that you are more likely to be crushed by the rolling boulder.

I played two games with my daughters tonight, ages 8 and 10. They LOVED it. Games take about 45 minutes. Highly recommended as a pulp gateway game.

link

Does it have any replay value or are the games very similar?

Thanks in advance
Andrew
blog.kings-sleep.me.uk

The games are similar but if you just want a fast game to pass the time with friends or family I'd recommend it. The rolling boulder and the moving walls would make great extra scenery for mini gaming if you so desire.

We played our third game tonight – all have been different, mostly because we have all started tempting fate. The more you play, the more likely you are to stand that extra turn, trying to pick a lock, as the boulder bears down on you. Or you are more likely to take a chance on a lava square you aren't 100% sure of.

There's just as much glory in getting killed in a flashy way, as there is in winning (my youngest managed to get three characters killed in a single game – boulder, lava, and drowning, all to her eternal fame).

So if you approach it that way, I'd say replay value is high, for a family game.

I will say that the bridge has never gotten used. I can see it coming more into play in a 5 or 6 player game, though.

I pushed my luck and tried the bridge on my last game, since I didn't want to risk having to ditch any treasures at the waterfall – I was on the bridge (with only one plank surviving my terrible bridge roll), and had a great chance to get out of the temple alive, unless the boulder moved five spaces. Since it was my turn to roll for the boulder, I'd have only myself to blame if it moved fast enough to cut me off. I rolled: 4,5,5,5,6, and was trapped.

Two players were crushed the next turn, and one was trapped in the river.

I've played five or six times, and we are still having fun with it.

Is it such that once you complete the game, it loses its replay appeal? You get across the bridge and win and…that's it?

I played the Lord of the Rings board game twice. the first game was fun as the Fellowship learned the game and how to cooperate…but we lost. The second try we beat Sauron and won the game. Didn't feel the need or desire to play again.