Beschreibung
In World Explorer the Boardgame, players try to score points by carrying out classic expeditions, make scientific discoveries or simply travel to iconic locations around the world. In order to do any of those things each player needs to gather resources of different kinds, numbers, and combinations. Resources for expeditions and scientific research includes knowledge & ability, bravery, and financing. To travel you only need the combined resources of an airplane ticket and spending-money. The resources are collected by rolling the two dice. The more combined dots on the dice, the more resources you get to collect.
The game includes a board with a map of the world, seven types of cards (the various resources, the different assignments, "change of circumstance-cards") and game-pieces to mark the explored sections. The cards are sorted in to the seven different categories, shuffled and placed beside the board with the backside up. The players therefore don’t know for instance what particular resource, expedition, travel-destination etc they are going to collect, just the type of card. To determine who gets to start the game, the dice are rolled. The player with the highest combined dots on the dice becomes start player and the rest follow clockwise. Based on the number of dots in this first dice roll all players also get to collect resources or buy any other type of card or combination of cards that the number of combined dots will allow. And then the game begins.
On each turn the active player starts by rolling the dice. As in the starting round the player then gets to buy resources or other cards, based on the number of combined dots. The cards vary in cost between 3-8 dots. This means that if a player rolls a 2 combined, he/she doesn't get to collect any cards, but can still take other kinds of action in the turn, if possible. If a player rolls a 7, he/she are not allowed to collect any cards and are also forbidden to act in any other way in the actual turn. In this case all other players get to collect a card with a max value of 4. On each turn the active player, besides from rolling the dice and collecting resources or other cards, can carry out an expedition, make a scientific discovery or travel to a location (or any two or three of these actions combined), if the player has collected the proper cards and resources to do so. The player can also play a "changed circumstance-card", to either gain personal advantages or create trouble for the other players. The active player can also initiate trading with one or more of the other players. When the player has done all he/she can or wants to do, the turn goes on to the next player.
The game is typically divided in to three phases. In the first phase the players often gather resources and other cards to keep the number of possibilities of strategic choices for the rest of the game open. In the second phase the exploring gets more intense as the players start using their collected cards more actively. The points start to roll in and the map gets filled with game-pieces. In the third phase - the "end game" - players often tries to score easy points by travelling or to collect some of the extra points, in order to gain the final necessary points to win. At this stage many of the "changed circumstance-cards" are likely to have been played, which often makes it more difficult for one or more of the players. Points are scored by completing the expeditions, scientific discoveries or by travelling. The points scored on the expeditions vary based on difficulty - the harder to achieve the more points a player scores. And as in the old days of exploration you must get there first, as there are two each of the expedition cards! Any player that manages to make scientific discoveries in all the four different areas gets 5 extra points. Likewise, any player who manages to travel to all five continents gets 5 extra points. The game ends when a player has gathered 40 points.