Lewis & Clark: The Expedition

Some games slip through the net, then make you inspect your own collection with the mild embarrassment of someone who thought they had been paying attention. Lewis & Clark: The Expedition was one of those for me: an older design I met late, but one whose ideas have not acquired any dust at all.

At heart, it is a deck- and engine-builder in which each player is trying to organise an expedition across the American interior more efficiently than everyone else. This is not merely the familiar business of assembling a machine that produces a little more each turn; the paired-card system gives the choices a distinct character and keeps the whole design alert.

The interesting decision is when to make camp, and when to leave your icons available for the next player to exploit. It remains pleasingly tight at five, and the interaction is not ornamental: someone can make camp precisely when you are ready to use what they have left exposed. I am surprised more games have not taken that paired-card system and developed it further.

This is not just an interesting artefact from an earlier wave of design, but an engine-builder that still asks for careful planning and rewards clever play. If you find a second-hand copy, it is a blind buy for any regular group.