Through the Mountains, Through the Desert Deluxe + MORE!

Welcome to the Kickstarter! The caravan is headed for the mountains.

This campaign features deluxified Collector's Editions of Through the Desert and its brand new sequel Through the Mountains. 

Bundle them with Triskel (a luxuriously-produced abstract game based on Kory Heath's cult classic Uptown) and 5 of a Kind (a deckbuilding and shedding game inspired by Balatro and Haggis) for huge savings and FREE upgrades and expansions!

Reiner Knizia's classic Through the Desert gets a sequel in Through the Mountains

Lead your yaks through steep passes, dive deep into the valleys for respite, and visit the beautiful temples built into the ridgelines.

Just like the original, the rules for taking your turn are incredibly simple: just place two yaks. However, the board gets crowded fast. As you jockey for position to score the most points, your decisions feel both vast and consequential. 

Will you target the new temple spaces, that allow you to place an extra piece? Or will you rush for the new valleys?  These spaces take up three of the original hexes, allowing for faster movement and more choices across the board. Not getting to them before they get full of your opponents' yaks could cut off huge parts of the board!

Through the Mountains shares some of the mechanics and gut-wrenching feelings of Through the Desert, but is a completely new game.

In Through the Mountains, you don't control a single color of yak. Rather, every player controls every color, and you'll build caravans of each one throughout the game. Your caravan can never touch another player's caravan of the same color, so be careful of getting blocked!

The new valley spaces hold up to three yaks. They're adjacent to every space around them, so caravans that pass through can stretch much farther, much faster.

Place a yak next to a temple? You'll get to immediately place a bonus yak! You can earn this ability once per turn.

There are many ways to score in Through the Mountains, and the tactical struggle to try and squeeze every last point out of the game state is what makes it so good.

You can see a draft rulebook of Through the Mountains here.

Valleys Are Game-Changing - The entire table knows that using the valley spaces really opens up the board. Only three yaks can fit on each one, so there's often a mad dash. Do you race for them too, or go for opportunities elsewhere? Where aren't your opponents looking?

Huge Decisions From Simple Rules - Your whole turn is placing two yaks. That’s it. But with four caravans to grow, rivals blocking your routes, and the game ending the moment any yak color runs out, those two yaks get very hard to place. This game teaches in five minutes, but you can still get better at it after your 100th time playing.

Tactical Temple Tempo - In a game where you place two pieces a turn, playing a third by visiting a temple is a huge boon. That extra yak could be key to closing a trade route, secure a spot in a valley, or cut someone off from scoring.

Considered by many to be Reiner Knizia's greatest game.

Through the Desert has been reprinted, reimagined, and replayed on game tables around the world since 1998. You'll lead caravans of camels across the desert, with tough competition competing over the scarce traces of water on the map.

If you've never played Through the Desert and are backing the sequel, this is the perfect place to jump into the series. If you've loved Through the Desert for years, this Collector's Edition (with resin camels, resin oases, metal tokens, and metal leaders) is the version to keep forever. 

Just like Through the Mountains, you'll place two pieces every turn. Each camel extends your caravan of the matching coor, and caravans can fork in any direction.

Vis an oasis to take five points. Several caravans can connect to the same oasis, but each one scores it only once. Get there before they fill up!

Place a camel on a watering hole to take its token, worth up to three points. At setup, they're randomly scattered around the desert so keep an eye on them when placing your initial camels!

Surround an area with your caravan (cluding the map's borders and mountains), and you'll get tons of points. You'll even claim every watering hole inside it!

Enclosing Areas vs. Diversifying Strategies - It might seem obvious that looping a single caravan around a valuable stretch of desert gains you massive amounts of points. But, it takes a lot of camels and turns to do that. Can you pull it off while your opponents scrounge up watering holes and oases with minimal effort?

Player-Controlled Game Length - The game ends the moment someone places the last camel of any one color. When you've got enough points, should you pivot and try to drain a color and end the game quickly?

The Definitive Edition Of A Classic - Through the Desert has been around since 1998, and this version is our favorite way to play it. The resin camels, resin oases, and metal leaders give the game an incredible table presence.

aSdf

Some games feel discovered.

Triskel is that kind of game. It's got that elegant, timeless feel of a game that's been played on stone tables for a thousand years. 

Your goal is simple: connect your pieces in a way to have as few clusters as possible. Your turns are simple: each turn, place a tile. Numbers go in their column, letters in their row, symbols in their quadrant, and wilds go anywhere.

You can capture pieces, but at game end, the highest number of captures from a single opponent count against you. You'll have to capture cleverly!

The tiles you play with are designed to be satisfying to handle. They're thick and chunky, with convex bases that lift easily off the table.

Triskel is an re-creation of Kory Heath's wonderful Uptown, built with keepsake-quality components. It looks so good in person that you could leave it out on the coffee table for years. And it has gameplay that rewards you for playing that long.

Place tiles based on their symbol. Orthogonally connected tiles of your faction form a cluster, and you want as few clusters as possible at the of the game.

Place your tile on top of an opponent’s to capture it. It still has to follow the normal placement rules, but it doesn’t have to match the tile it replaces. You can never capture a tile that would break up an opponent’s cluster, so lone tiles and the tips of clusters are the ones at risk. A well-placed capture can also stitch two of your own clusters into one.

Once everyone has drawn their last tile, each player takes one final turn. Count your clusters on the board, then add the number of tiles you captured from whichever faction you took the most from. Lowest score wins, so spread your captures around. If there’s a tie, the player with the fewest total captures wins.

You can read a draft rulebook for Triskel here.

Capturing Cuts Both Ways - Taking an opponent’s tile can expand your cluster while ruining their plans. But, those tiles also count against you at the end of the game (one per number of tiles captured from a single faction). If you take a few tiles from everyone, you’ll probably be fine. Pick on one player? It could cost you!

Tactile Convex Pieces - Like a convex Go piece, the Triskel pieces are designed to be easy to pick up without disturbing the rest of the board. A slight bump of the table doesn’t mess them up either.

Uptown, Built To Last  - Kory Heath’s original Uptown is an Allplay staff favorite. We’re proud to be making a special version in Triskel, with production the game deserves.

“A game that will be staying in my collection for a long time… Easy to learn and very interactive.” - Board Gems, on Triskel’s original version, Uptown

asdf

asdf

asdf

asdf

Passing is Productive - In most climbing games, passing means sitting out. In 5 of a Kind, passing lets you get batter. Passing is actually called "Pass & Prep". That's when you'll draw, cycle your deck, or buy a card from the market that goes straight in your hand. Because passing doesn't remove you from the round, if the same meld comes back you can jump right in with your new spoils.

Balatro Similarities and Differences - If you've lost a few (hundred) hours to Balatro, you know the joy of bending and tweaking a classic deck of cards into one that gets strange and powerful over the course of a game. But whereas Balatro is a solo, number-go-up kind of game, 5 of a Kind is a head-to-head climbing game where your opponents are building wild decks too.

Cycle Cards Quickly - Every time you run thorough your deck, you earn a VP chip. The game end's triggered when no more VP chips are left in the supply. Optimize your deck before time runs out!