Wouter & Ymke 
In this auction game for 2 players, you and your opponent are trying to construct the best camping site, with swimming pools, houses, campfires and much more! You’ll find the available space in your camping site limited so it’s necessary to focus on certain aspects of the scoring, certainly taking the end game objectives into account.
2 players, ages 8+
Playing time: 25 minutes
Design & artwork: Jurgen Spreutels
Publisher: Cacahuete Games
https://cacahuetegames.com/
Players begin the game with 6 bidding coins depicting different values. Each turn, players place 2 coins face down: one on top of one of the open cards in the row and another one on the table.
When players run out of discs the bidding ends, and the highest bid on the table first gives the player an extra card before the cards in the card row are rewarded. Players put the cards in their camping site, building a 3 by 4 playing area and triggering the end game scoring when one player matches this shape.
Points for roads, houses, forest, pools, tents and campfires are awarded based on the placement relative to each other. Each player also has a secret mission which is now revealed and scores points together with the missions revealed at the start of the game. The player with the most points has built the most attractive campsite and wins the game.
Camping Life is a quick and fun bidding game, easy to teach and very portable so ideal to take with you when going on a – let’s say it! – camping trip. For me this has just the right weight and playtime for after an exhausting day but when I still want to play a game to relax before going to bed.
Simple rules don’t mean there isn’t much decision space: You’re never really certain you’ll win a specific card until the bids are revealed, so it’s a good thing to keep your options open and adapt your strategy depending on the cards you manage to win. Every play you have to optimize a different puzzle depending on which cards come out and with the variety in missions replayability is certainly good.
In any case, I already know what we’ll be playing at the campfire this summer!
