Boonlake: Artifacts

I get the feeling that Great Alexander has either temporarily run out of new ideas or is secretly preparing something big. Until then, he is recycling and mixing elements from his previous successes. Artifacts is exactly that: an expansion that makes the already sprawling Boonlake even busier, without turning into pointless excess.

The core of Boonlake remains in place, but the expansion adds the exploration mechanism that recalls Maracaibo. This new layer does not merely change the game so there can be something new in the box; it gives me more to weigh up and more reasons to plan my route through the session.

Artifacts come into their own in the second half, offering asymmetric powers at a significant cost. That is where the most interesting improvement lies: Boonlake gains some of the measured tension that, for me, it had been missing. It is not necessarily the push-your-luck of the herds in GWT, the light aggression of Mombassa, or the racing element of Blackout, but it does create more pressure around players' choices and priorities.

It is an honest expansion and, for me, Artifacts makes Boonlake better. The base game was not boring; it simply needed a little more tension. It finds that here, while also cutting roughly half an hour from the playtime, which I can only regard as a positive.