One game that I played at Gen Con, and picked up there, last year was Trekking Through History. This is a light family weight game where you are exploring different timelines and collecting resources. Is that enough to make it a good game? Join me as I dive into Trekking Through History by Underdog Games for my full thoughts and review.

How To Play Trekking Through History

Trekking Through History is a time travel game where you are exploring history over three days. Each day makes up one of your rounds. In each day you spend twelve time or more to gather cards and experiences and add them to your timeline. That is most of the game, whomever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner. And we’ll talk about the different ways to get points next.

Getting Points

You get points in two main ways, though there is a third that I’ll touch on briefly first. Those ways are ending your day at exactly twelve time, filling in your daily travel itinerary, and creating runs of time travelled from oldest to newest.

So we already completely covered the first. That is just ending your day with exactly twelve. Let’s talk about the itinerary next. Each day you get an itinerary that has four different columns. Each column corresponds to a different type of event that you can find in the timeline. So as you select your next event to add to your timeline, you need to get events that will give you the right tokens. You fill in tokens on your sheet from top to bottom. Some of the spots give you points for covering them. Others give you points if you complete a row. And there is one more resource we’ll talk about soon.

The other way is by creating a run for your timeline. When you grab a new card you always need it to be more recent than your previous one you grabbed. If it is, you add it to your run of cards. If it isn’t you start a new run of cards. But you keep the old run of cards as well. At the end of the game you score each of your runs of cards. If it’s a single card you lose three points, two you get zero and then it keeps going up from there.

Turn Order

The final thing I want to talk about is turn order. I talked about the twelve time that you can spend. You actually can spend over that, but you always stop at twelve on the time track. And as I mentioned, if you like it up correctly and stop right on twelve you get a bonus three points.

Each card you take, beyond having the different tokens, is going to make you spend an amount of time. There is a resource you can get, time crystals that let you reduce the time. So what does this have to do with turn order?

Well, whomever is furthest back on the clock, the time tracker, gets to go next. And if you spend time and land on a spot with someone else, you go on top of them. So then the player on top of that stack is going to go next. The time crystals allow you to reduce your time so that you are able to go multiple turns in a row.

Then, at the end of the game, whomever has the most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work

This is a pretty light game and there is a decent amount of luck to it. Especially in lower player count games the cards for the timeline don’t change that much. So it is possible that in the beginning you get a card that is way back in time, in the BCE (Before Common Era) range and then you need to jump up a long ways and create a gap. So as players you are somewhat dealing with the luck of the cards.

What Works

Firstly the simplicity of this game is great. And not only the simplicity, but one of the things I talk about with a lot of games, the speed of the game play as well. A few turns might take a bit more time. And this is because you want to get the right tokens to optimize your itinerary for the day. But for the most part, most of them are fast, and the game as a whole, three rounds, is really fast as well.

But with that simplicity of what you are doing, I really like that they add in the itinerary. If it is just a game of collecting times and putting them into your timeline in order, that is not super interesting. But the addition of the itinerary gives you that one thing to think about that keeps the game from feeling too simple. How do I get the tokens I need to hit that next big scoring objective is pretty commonly a thought in my head. So I am able to plan out my turns a little bit that way.

And the time crystals are fun as well. They are a resource that is worth a point at the end of the game. But it is almost always better to use them in the game. Why, because it helps you set-up your timeline and it helps you get more cards for that run. It’s another simple thing, but manipulating the turn order is a lot of fun with them. And it can lead to some big swings in your advantage if you do it right.

Who is Trekking Through History For?

This is going to be a game that will be light for a lot of people I’m sure. I find it light as well and I’ll talk about that more. But this is a great game for families in a ton of ways. Firstly, the game play is easy enough to play with kids. I think that even pretty young kids could start to figure it out. And easily by the time your kid is eight, this is a game that you could play.

But the other big reason that this is such a great family game is that it teaches history. Each card, on the back, is going to tell you about the historical event that the card is depicting or the person on the card. It is an amazing opportunity to play a fun game and learn.

Final Thoughts on Trekking Through History

I find Trekking Through History to be a very enjoyable game. It is easy to teach, learn, and play. And sometimes that is an important thing for a game night. Add in the history that you learn form it, and that is a great added element to what you are doing in the game. Plus the game offers just enough to be a solid game as well. There is just enough strategy in filling out the itinerary to keep me engaged and just enough manipulation of the time track with the time crystals.

I suspect a number of people would find this game too simple. And I get that, it is simple but it is a game with a very specific focus for why it was made. It is a chance to play a game and learn about history and engage as a kid and as a family. My kid is not quite old enough to play it yet. But I’m excited for the time when I can use this to help him keep learning and have a fun time doing so. There is more to this than the game Timeline, which can do the same thing, but not a ton more.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: A
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 6

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