Favorite Game for December 24th

#1 Creature Caravan

Creature Caravan is by artist designer Ryan Laukat founder of Red Raven Games. Ryan is known for his incredible illustration work and for narrative games like Near & Far and Sleeping Gods. Creature Caravan is designed by Ryan but it's not a narrative game. Creature Caravan is an engine building dice placement card game.

Creature Caravan features a central board that's just a map divided into spaces that players are trying to traverse from one side to the other like pawns across a chess board. The further you move your little caravan piece across this map the more points you will get at game's end. At the end of each turn your caravan pitches a little tent where you have stopped. When you run out of tents, the game ends and points are totaled.

Movement is accomplished by placing dice on your player board into spaces that represent the terrain type that you want your caravan to enter. Clear terrain made up of green grass can be entered easily with almost any die, but things like mountains or water will require dice of higher values to enter.

In addition to movement you can also place dice to generate currency and to draw cards. You can have any number of cards in your hand, but if you want to play the cards down in front of you, that will require you to spend the aforementioned currency. There are three kinds of currency: food, gold, and supplies. Different cards will require different combinations of these.

The cards represent all manner of creatures and vehicles that will join your Creature Caravan. All of these cards feature Ryan's whimsical artwork and every card is unique. Some cards will score points depending on other cards that you have in your caravan providing a set collection challenge to the game. Many cards will provide new places to put the dice that you have rolled granting you more and better actions.

You may also need to place dice to fight enemies that endanger your caravan. Oh, yeah. Some spaces on the board contain enemies: Ember Zombies that will plague your caravan if you pass through their square. Defeating them will gain you points at the end of the game, but allowing them to harass your caravan unchecked will cost you points.

The combat is a cool thing, but it's not vital. I think Julie completely ignored the zombies in our last game, and she still won. The game is relaxing escapism in the best possible way. I called Explorers of the North Sea "board game comfort food." I think that goes double for Creature Caravan. I love this game. In fact, Creature Caravan is officially my #1 favorite game.