1911 Amundsen vs Scott is a simple 2-player race to the South Pole (and back to the boats if you play the extra advanced variant).  The game is based on the real events where Amundsen beat Scott to the Pole and Scott didn’t return.

Players each have their own path of coloured spaces to move along.  On a player’s turn, they first draw cards which has a nice, simple game mechanic/decision.  There are 3 face-up cards and the player can take the right-most (oldest) 1, 2 or 3 cards, and any remaining cards get moved to the right.  Each cards show one of 4 colours as well as various special actions – some are used when the player draws the card, and some when a player plays the card.

After drawing cards, the player can either (a) play cards to move, or (b) play cards for their special effect (one of which makes the opponent lose their way or move backwards), or (c) play cards to find their route again (due to their opponent making them lose their way).  The first player to move onto the South Pole wins.

To move, a player needs to play cards that match the colours of the path spaces – 1 card for the next space, 2 cards for any after that.  It’s interesting to note that each player only uses 3 of the 4 colours to move (apart from the final move onto the South Pole).

Playing a pair of Blizzard/Crevasse cards makes the opponent lose their way which moves them off of their route.  Until they play cards to move back onto the route, the ‘lost’ player can not perform some actions, plus they are more susceptible to cards that move them backwards.  Other special cards steal a card from the opponent’s hand, advance spaces, force the opponent to lose all their dogs/horses (which are wild cards), etc.

The game comes with 3 different expansions that can be used in any mixture.  The first is a selection of patron cards and the player gains a special ability from the random patron they are dealt at the start.   The second, is an additional stage of gameplay after the players reach the pole and make their way back to the boats.  This is pretty neat as the first half of the board is flipped over to reveal a new section and there are a few extra rules. The third expansion is weather cards which are drawn each time a player crosses a parallel and a dice is rolled to see which effect on the card takes place.

1911 Amundsen vs Scott appears to be a short, card-drawing game with a great theme and some great looking artwork.  There is probably some luck in the order the cards are drawn in, but I don’t mind that in a light and fast game.

You can read the rules and see the details of the game on Kokorin’s web site: bga.me/1911AvS

James.