our review

Search through the Himalayas

Yeti

Footprints or pictures

Courageous mountaineers look for footprints of Yeti in the Himalaya and hope for a picture of the furry creature, who, by the way, makes an appearance in the game himself.

The Himalayan mountain range is set up and sits as a mountain with three levels in the middle of the board, on the peak there are number tiles stacked in descending order. Yeti begins the game on case 50 on the scoring track, markers of the players start on case 0. The photo bar and equipment tiles, arranged at the photo bar sorted by price, are laid out. The heart of the game are seven dice featuring symbols for Snow, Sherpa, 2x Footprints, Tent and Coin.

The active player rolls all dice available to him – usually seven; at the start of the game or after a snowstorm – more on that later – it might be less than seven. All dice that show snow  symbols must be set aside immediately; and then you choose a symbol and set aside all dice showing it. If you did not roll snow, you must choose a symbol and set aside all dice showing it. Then you roll the remaining dice again and set snow and symbols or symbols aside, you can add symbols to kinds of symbols already previously set aside. If you are done with rolling, the result is resolved in a given sequence.

SNOW – For less than three snow symbols, nothing happens. With exactly three snow in your roll, you may change one snow symbol into any symbol of your choice. But if you have more than three snow symbols in your result, a snow storm happens which influences all players: Yeti moves forward on the score track, four to seven steps in relation to the number of players, but cannot catch up with or overtake any player marker. Then you place all but three dice with snow on your action summary sheet, those dice are out of play for one one round for all the other players.

Then you use COINS in your result for one buy, either equipment from the photo bar or from another player; this player is rewarded with the point value of the tile.

SHERPA symbols enable you to climb up the mountain; with one Sherpa by one level, with three Sherpa symbols up to two levels and with six Sherpa symbols three levels; if you reach the peak for the first time, you take the top number tile on the peak for points.

FOOTPRINTS are of course especially valuable, the higher up on the mountain you find them the more valuable they are – when your man adventurer is in the base camp you score one point per footprint, on Level One two points, on Level Two three points and on the peak you score for points for footprint symbol.

TENTS in a roll prevent you from having to go back to base camp; with one tent you can camp on Level One, with two and three tents respectively on Level Two or at the peak. If you have not enough tents in your roll, you must descend to the level suitable for the amount of tents in your roll.

If someone reaches Yeti or overtakes him on the scoring track, you win at the end of the current round with most points.

If you want to have a bit more excitement you can add the weather tiles to the game, they represent events that are active for one round for all players; at the start of the round the top tile is removed and thus the next event revealed.

Actually, one should – to raise the chances for surviving and success in the Himalayas – move in groups, but this is not the case in this game; basically, everyone rolls the dice for himself, curses or applauds the result and runs after the Yeti. There is little to no interaction, unless to count the buying equipment from other players, and even that comes with a big „but“, because the player I buy the equipment tile from loses the advantage of the tile, but is consoled with the point value of the equipment tile – so the buying frenzy that is apt to happen at the start of the game if someone rolls coins slows down considerable in the course of the game. Often it is better to invest a good coin roll in photos, as regards to scoring points. The photos, by the way, are the one illogical element in the game – why do I buy photos instead of taking them myself?

With that I am done with raising my eyebrows, the rest is praise pure and simple; I have rarely seen a dice game that is so amusing and harmonious; each and every individual element is well thought out and fits the topic very, very well. Especially cute is the Yeti who runs away – very plausible! He does not want to be found after all and uses each snowstorm to make off further into the snow. Tents, Sherpas, all that is necessary when you want to get to the peak, the weather tiles introduce more variety and thus raise the replay value for this fantastic family game!

Dagmar de Cassan

Players: 2-5

Age: 8+

Time: 40+

Designer: Benjamin Schwer

Artist: Dennis Lohausen, Andreas Resch

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Pegasus Spiele 2016

Web: www.pegasus.de

Genre: Dice, using dice results

Users: For families

Version: multi

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Interaction only from buying equipment

Nice topic very coherently implemented

Very pretty and very functional components

Easy access

Compares to:

Dice games with consecutive use of results

Other editions:

Alderac (en, announced), dV Giochi (it), Matagot (fr)

My rating: 6

Dagmar de Cassan:

A quick, very atmospheric game that transports the story with all its elements, dice fun pure and simple with lots of flair, for all the family!

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 0

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0