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Time is running out! Hurry up, Indie!!! Or rather, hurry up everyone! Because in Indiana Jones Sands of Adventure, we are taking on well-loved characters from the brilliant adventure franchise to work together and rescue the Ark of the Covenant before it falls into the wrong hands!
Super-Sized Sand Timer
Now, I do like a gizmo in a game, but often they prove to be just a bit of cardboard fluff. Not in this one, however! The giant serpent headed sand timer works brilliantly, and its operation is integral to the gameplay itself!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a step back (watch out for snakes!) and give a flavour of the game first. This is a fast playing, strategic, hand management, real-time, push-your-luck, deck building, pattern matching, action selection, worker placement, asymmetrical ability game that is really fun! And if that sounds like a lot to pack in, it is! But they all work really well together. To give your mind time to marvel at all the mechs in play I’ll list them out……
- co-operative
- real time
- push your luck
- deck building
- pattern matching
- asymmetric abilities
- hand management
- dice chucking
- action selection
- worker placement
Played over 3 rounds, essentially what you and up to 3 other players are doing each round is finding a way to reduce the active Villain(s)’ health to zero before the time runs out. You do that by working together to lay attack-based action/upgrade cards down and knocking them back hit point after hit point. But, in almost trick-taking style, you can only lay a card that matches the colour or symbol of the card laid before it. So as a team you need to co-ordinate who has what and who is going to lay what when! And that’s all quite cool, calm and collected during the turn-based part of the round.
During that part, you decide which action is best for your character to activate, bearing in mind their asymmetric ability and that of the Villain’s. You move your character to that tile, activate the action, and then roll one or two threat dice. If the threat dice reveal gems, you have to add them to the top basket of the sand timer. If they reveal an “X”, you have to activate the nefarious Villain’s meanie power! Round one introduces Colonel Deitrich, then round two has Major Toht, and then finally round three welcomes Dr Rene Belloq. And each starts with more health than the previous one….so you know it's building up to the big boss battle at the end!
But then suddenly, when the sand timer gem basket reaches critical point and swings, play moves into the real-time phase and everything starts going at super-speed! Players still need to lay cards in turn, but now when players stop laying cards they can draw a new action card off the deck…and that might just be the vital linking colour/symbol or another attack card! So the game becomes a fast synapse sizzling session with split second decisions over when to stop laying cards and pass over to the next player!
In good old Indie fashion, however, slithery snakes are never too far away! When a snake card is drawn in the real-time phase, the active player has to roll the red dice and the next player can then only start laying cards if the torch symbol is rolled! If you have been canny during phase one and collected a power token that allows you to ignore the snake (or interrupt another player’s turn or play any card), then this might not slow you down. Otherwise, everyone round the table starts chanting “come ooonnnnnn” as torch after torch gets missed!
If you defeat the Villain before the sand timer runs out, awesome – they get sent away and the game is reset in readiness for the next one including swapping in a new action tile (although note that any upgrade cards played to the action deck are retained in a light but very effective nod to deck building!!). If you don’t defeat Deitrich or Toht, however, they stick around and you’ll face a double or triple battle in round 3! It's wild! Haha
Final Thoughts
We have an absolute blast playing this game. It’s fun, and the artwork really does bring back great memories of the Indiana Jones films I watched as a kid (and still do…except number 4….that sucked!). But it’s also hiding some really neat tricks up its sandy sleeves.
Snakes in Sands of Adventure seem to be quite innocent in phase one as they don’t harm you per se. But it’s effectively a waste of a collected card because it’s not one you can use to add to your hand…ssssssneaky! And because the actions from which you can choose are quite limited, the game makes you really work them to your advantage on your turn as well as when thinking about everyone else too.
For example, there is a push-your-luck action where you have to dump all cards gained that turn if you reveal two cards of the same colour/symbol in a row. That sounds pretty grim on the face of it – to lose potential cards. But…..because they get added to the discard pile that will become the deck next round, you know that you’re giving yourself a head start going forwards! And choosing which action tile to activate becomes a trade off between what you really need now and avoiding the Villain who could join you and trigger his nastiness if the threat dice reveal an “X”! Likewise, having simple but asymmetrical powers is also another factor that can and should be leveraged if factored into your own turn and future planning!
Yes, there is some luck when drafting cards – the deck could be hiding all the action cards right at the bottom. Or a run of snakes could appear which makes it impossible to do anything except watch the sands of time disappear. But because the undefeated Villains stay on, you’ve got the chance to try again in round 3! And that’s great because it means everybody is invested in the game until the very end!
The components are really evocative of the Indiana Jones films and the giant and timer works really well - it suddenly tips and swings and everyone suddenly races into action to try and co-ordinate colours and icons on cards in a chain effect to try and get those villains gone!
Easy to learn, fun to play, and a brilliant mix of mechanics. We love the switch between calm and chaos and it’s definitely a game that makes us enjoy co-operative gaming as a family!!
