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Trails is a 2021 game from designer Henry Audubon and published by Keymaster games. It is in the PARKS series of games and is an accessible set collection game with stunning art.
In Trails players will be taking a hike and exploring iconic sites and national parks across the US. Players will be gathering resources, observing wildlife and earning badges to gain points. As players move from the trailhead to the trail end and back, the sun begins to set. As night begins to fall, the trail sites become more powerful and grant better bonuses.
Setup
Each player receives a hiker meeple, a canteen and an acorn, leaf and rock resource.
The Trail is set up by shuffling the five trail sites and placing them side by side on their day side. The resources are placed below the matching site. The bird trophy is placed below the photography action. The trail head is placed at the beginning of the trail and the trail end at the end using the respective side for the relevant number of players.
The badge and the photo decks are shuffled with two badges being placed at the trailhead and two at the trail end. Each player also draws a badge card. The sun token is placed at the trail end and the wildlife token placed on the respective trail card. The hikers are placed on the trailhead card in 2/3 player game or at the trailhead and trail end in a 4 player game.
Player’s Turn
On a player’s turn of Trails they can move one or two spaces forward in the direction their hiker is facing and then perform the corresponding action on the trail tile. Actions include gaining resources, exchanging resources for other resources or paying a resource to perform the photography action (see later). Players can use their canteen to move any number of spaces instead of the standard one or two. Players have a resource limit of eight and must discard down to this at the end of their turn.
When a player reaches the trail end they turn their worker around to face the opposite direction, gain the bonus below where the sun token is and move the sun token one space to the left. The player can then spend resources to claim one or more of the badges. These badges are ways to score the majority of your points at the end of the game.
Photography
When a player lands on the photography spot then can draw two cards from the deck, keep one whilst discarding the other, or take the top face up card from the discard pile.
Wildlife
If a player lands on a space with the wildlife token (or the wildlife action) the player rolls the wildlife die. The wildlife token is then moved to the corresponding space and the player performs the action from that trail space.
Sun
The sun token is in essence the timer for the game. As players reach the trail end the sun token will move one space to the left (trailhead). When a player reaches trail end they either gain the bonus the sun token is pointing to or perform the action on the trail tile. It then moves one space left and when it moves off a trail tile, it is flipped to its night time side.
Game End
The game ends when the sun reaches the leftmost space on the trailhead. Whoever triggers the end game receives a free photo and each player takes one more turn. Points are awarded for your photographs and badges. The player who has seen the most birds gains the bird trophy which is worth four points. The player with the most Trails points is the winner.