Lewis & Clark is a race to be the first player whose camp reaches the Pacific Ocean.  Players have cards, indians and resources and each player has a board showing several boats in which they store their resources and indians, and which boat these are placed in also makes a difference too.

Cards are dual use (double-sided) – they can be used for their action, or for their strength.  When a card is played to perform an action, it must be accompanied with either another card and/or indians to set its strength which determines how many times the action can be performed.  Actions allow players to move their scout forwards, gather other resources, improve their expedition, etc.  Quite often the number of resources gained is based on the card you and your neighbouring payers have in front of them.

Players can also send indians from their exploration party to the village to perform actions there instead.  During the game, the player advances their scout across the country and, at times, they will move their camp forwards.  Players who use/allocate most of their resources and indians before they move their camp will advance the most.

On their turn, a player can move their camp to where their scout is; however, the scout must first move backwards a number of spaces based on the cards still in the player’s hand plus having resources/indians still in some boats can affect this too.  So, a player is likely to make better progress if they use all of their available resources. Once per turn, a player can also recruit a new character (card) too.  When moving camp, the player retrieves the cards they have played along with any indians on them (but indians that went to the village do not return).

The game looks very promising (and with a board that reminds me of Stone Age which is a plus too).  Cards seem to have 2 or 3 uses so I like the decisions this should create for a player along with resource generation and management.  There’s also a solo variant too.  I’m definitely excited to play this one.

You can read the rules on Ludonaute’s web site: bga.me/lc

James.