Expedition Africa – The Game – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: stephen Curran
Version #: 1
Date Released: 2009-05-01
Developer:
Price: 0.00
User Rating:
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Expedition Africa is a single player, turn-based, dice game. From what I gather, it’s based on a TV show on the History channel. Never seeing the show, so I can’t comment on how well it ties in.
The goal of the game is to get your mark from Zanzibar to Ujiji. At the start of each turn, you roll the 6 dice–5 white dice and one black die. The white dice either have a ‘distance’ on them, a porter, or something ‘deadly’ (crocodiles, mosquitos, plauge, or snake). The black die has some sort of resource on it–food, money, medicine, rifle, gun, machete.
After the each roll, you pick the die you want to keep and roll again. After three rolls, the dice are used as your resources for one week’s worth of travel. (Why 6 dice and not 7 dice? Maybe you rest on the 7th day.)
For each ‘distance’ you’ve selected, your marker moves that far. When you hit a "check point", you make camp and ‘something’ happens. (EX: Your porter falls gets lost, somebody wants to trade with you, etc)
If you make it to Ujiji, you win.
What the game lacks is momentum and variety. The events that happen at a particular check point are always the same. And transitioning from each ‘section’ of the game is fairly slow–so slow that I repeatedly tapped the screen the first time I played it!
Entering each check point is a gorgeous picture of the landscape, but when you ‘tap’ to get into the check point, it’s just green text with some choices. At the very least, it’d be nice if the picture was in the background with the text overlaying it. And how about different things happening with each game? I’m sure a porter wouldn’t fall in a cliff EACH time it entered the camp. How about some wild animals? Or more trading?
All-in-all, I thought the game was boring, and mundane.
Quick Take
Value: Low
Would I Buy Again: No
Learning Curve: Quick to get the hang of it. Once you get over the lag, it’s a piece of cake
Who Is It For: People that like dice games and people that like the TV Show?
What I Like: The images are amazing looking…
What I Don’t: The pace of the game is slow, and the same things keep happening at the same time with each game.
Final Statement: The game wasn’t fun or exciting. There wasn’t enough variety–and variety is the spice of life!
O U R T A K E . . .
