Expeditions - Playthrough & Review

Thanks for this review. I laughed when you talked about Jamey's designs and story. I really believe (just my own opinion) that Jamey WANTS to tell a story that with any aspect: the player can expound upon his his/her own mind. Even with Rise of Fenris...I think it tells a story that basically could spawn 1000 more. To me, it's kind of like reading a book: each of us could read the exact same chapter but if you were able to envision it in your mind and put it on a screen: all three would be WILDLY different. I believe Jamey wants to create that same kind of experience rather than tell the same 'intro/conflict/climax/conclusion' story

Skipped to the review because all the comments were saying you hated it and that had me worried (I don’t normally watch/read reviews because they tend to have the opposite of the intended effect on me but I’ve found yours helpful in the past). But if your final thoughts are “enjoyed it but not more than Scythe” that doesn’t sound so bad, I figured that was going to be my feeling when the game was announced months ago. Since I’m going into it wanting “an exploration game inspired by Scythe” and not “bigger better Scythe” I’m hopeful I won’t be disappointed.

Curious whether the time thing is gonna be an issue to me, honestly before I got experienced in Scythe the pace you described is exactly how Scythe felt to me, crawling early game, sprinting late game.

I’ll have to come back and watch your playthrough which is what I really came here for until I started seeing the comments. If people don’t like this game I’ll just be careful about bringing it up just like I am with Tapestry, Pendulum, or Explorers of the North Sea.

seems similar to when people tried to compare Twilight Inscription to Twilight Imperium. It's just two completely different games, but I guess it draws in customers to market them like that

I don't much like Scythe, maybe if I played it more I would come to appreciate it. This game looks a lot more interesting to me. I think it's really nice to have different kinds of games from one universe, though.

This game looks really boring to me. Scythe was quite ok for me.

This game looks so interesting. I love Scythe, I love the flavor and gameplay, but this seems so completely different. One thing that I love about scythe is the engine building it includes. How do you feel about that aspect here? You mentioned it connected to the items and meteorites, but the engine building seems very limited, no?
Either way, thanks for the video, a delight as always!

So is this one that stays in your collection and gets plays or will it be moving on?

Love watching you two. She always starts out like she is in trouble but then overtakes you at the end. And there is always a point during the game where you realize that you are going to lose. LOL

This playthrough was fun to watch and looked fun to play. Not sure if that’s the correct takeaway based on everyone else’s comments here but I kept wanting to be like “ok let me take over for you now!” and jump right in which is normally how I feel when watching a playthrough of a game I end up enjoying.

I'm curious about your comments that this is a long game. You mention all your plays are over 90 minutes but your actual game time in this video is only 65 minutes and that was with you explaining and talking through your turns. Even at 90 minutes, that's quite a bit quicker than a game of Scythe which is one of the major draws to this game for me.

Have you played Vindication? If so how does this compare? Is it similar?

I guess the abilities are kind of balanced because it's a card driven game. They can be more useful or not if the cards draw are aligned with them. But sometimes you can make powerful combos, like Monique did in this game.

Great playthrough! The theme is a little weird on the "expeditions" because you keep moving in circles instead of moving forward and exploring and then it keeps repeating until it's over.

LOL about Scythe story - Scythe was first game for me and my 10 years old that time son. Perfect game for start, right! My son was fallen in love with Scythe world and in high school for one English assessment he wrote short story about that Japanese character and her monkey - task for assessment was to write only start of the story but in the way the reader wants to read what's going on further. Son got very high marks for that. And after that his English teacher called me because he was so intrigued what's going on after in the story and what all those things are about, I said to him "now you feel our pain - we all want to know what and why was going on there" :)

Awesome playthrough! I'm looking forward to getting this.

I'm the opposite right now from Monique, I was not a fan of Scythe but this looks much more interesting. Can't wait to try it! (sorry if I spelled your name incorrectly ;))

Excited when it was announced. Fell flat for me after reading the rule book. I feel like a lot of newer SM games have been missing a certain edge lately. They feel too…safe? Good but there isn’t enough of the extra hook to make it a great game.

My question is do I pre order this as not available in NZ yet or the the Witcher old world , as big fan of that world but also a huge fan on scythe. Hard choices but I have not play tested any 😢

How many mech maps and characters does the game comes with also how many mech minis that you move with ? Nice video you two so polite and good chemistry.
😉👍

We just played this yesterday at 4, and enjoyed it. I definitely want to play again, because I know I can do better a second time around!

Love your videos. Game seems very solo'ish, but i can't help but want it regardless! wish the mech boards token track was wider though!

Awesome video as always !!!! Loved the playthrough, can't wait to play (we just received it yayy) !! Thanks guys, you are awesome <3

Is it me or is that resources track too narrow to comfortably use both trackers on?

One of my friends' all time faves is Scythe, and they are so excited about this one. Thank you so much for this!!!

Appreciate other people seeing how minimal the theme was despite the world design (thought I was on an island) This game felt like only mechanisms and points. Maybe was a more noticeable problem for me as I was sitting at the table with all the hexes and cards upside down to me so I didn't really read any of the location or card names, but all that mattered to me were the symbols. I won, but it felt a bit shallow as I don't know what winning even meant aside from I had $1 more than one of my opponents.

too long, too bland , too slow, too repetitive. totally based on hype. scythe was definitely much better, hope to be able to sell it. btw nice video as always

I like games that are driven by cards and worker placement, but I dont think that this game will make it on my table. I cannot even tell why, but its not what I expected it to be and some of the mechanics look even boring (collecting map tokens, without anything special happening when collecting them). Love the playthrough.

Played it for the first time yesterday! Our first play with three people took over 3 hours haha! I hope to bring it down a bit once we know the stragedy better.

I honestly really enjoyed expeditions. Scythe is my favorite game of all time and I didn’t expect this to be as good or similar to it. And it’s not. But it’s still really enjoyable I think!

4/5 ⭐️

Why is the box so BIG?

This game screams story mode! Would love to see a story like expansion for the completing quests portion of the game and picking up the explore tokens.

Great run through! You guys are some of the first gamers I look at for games!

I played about 10 games of scythe and decided that, while I enjoyed the simplicity of the mechanics and the theme/art, I thought the choices were a bit too obvious. Scythe almost felt like a game that played itself after the first few turns, unless you suffered a lot of interference from other players (which never seemed to be the case from my experience). I feel like, due to this being a card-driven game where each card is unique and you dont know what is going to come up in any given game, that the choices are a bit more open-ended and therefore I might enjoy it a bit more.

Great video, I got my first play of this on Friday and like most first throughs there were some learning moments and questions. This video helps a lot and our 2nd play through will be a lot smoother. I did have the same combo that Naveen had in Mech and Characters and what I did learn was that you need both cards and workers. Oh and when given the chance to gain coins you should take it I.E. when Naveen played the cat and was at 10 power.

THis game more suited for solo or 2 players max. Its just each player in their own bubble doing their own thing. No player interactions at all.

I felt kind of trapped in Scythe. It took 4 or 5 turns to get to where I wanted to. I could not got to some
Terrains even after I could cross a river. Producing was kind of mid. Encounters were cool but in a 5
Or 6 player game, it only happens once or twice per player.

I love that Tarkovsky is name checked in this game. His & the Strugatsky's influence and vision continue to be given homage in computer games and board games (not to mention modern film and novels; which of course I just mentioned).

This game/art is quite beautiful. And like the show (and books) Tales From The Loop, I love the juxtaposition of technology out of its perceived natural time frame. Also in this game, it's quite interesting there are dark themes, terminology, and very dark art / characters, but there is no actual violence / battles. Took me a while 75 min into the episode before I fully realized this. Thanks for the video / gameplay!

Don’t know how this game is the same price as scythe, crazy

You guys really nailed down the art of the playthrough. The flow was fantastic and the explanations clear and the rationale behind each decision was both brief and insightful. Thank you so much for your good work!

Thanks for the great explanation and the playthrough. Kept me from buying it. Too boring solitaire gameplay for me. I would definitely try it, but not blindly buying it.

This is like my third video watching from you guys, with my favorite being Lisboa.

The game sounds fascinating,. What holds me back is being locked out of a n action you need and the sitting and blocking on a spot so someone cant achieve a goal or vice versa. That sounds way frustrating and kind of petty. TY for your excellent review

Absolutely brilliant you guys explained your play through carefully and meaningful, I love the game and own both Expeditions and scythe with all expansions and really enjoy both.
Keep up the good work nice and clear explanation
Thank you and merry Christmas

Great teach and play! Thanks!

Nice game !!!

I don't know if you've played the expansion in the meantime, but it adds a wild worker that each player has from the start, starting resources (varying from mech to mech, but I think it's a total of 5 in the two different colors), a "corrupted mech" which is a neutral mech with easy manipulation that can interact with the players (and you can fight with, essentially getting corruption cards which are mostly equivalent to the tokens), and the map tokens from the map give you instant benefits. So it's both more interactive and shorter than the base game. I think it's definitely worth looking into it if you want to replay the game. I only played it with the expansion and I don't think I'd ever want to play without.