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Designed by Reiner Knizia, Through the Desert is one of those games that looks very straightforward on the table. Hexes, camels, a desert theme. Nothing wild going on. But let’s face it, once you actually start playing, it becomes clear pretty quickly that this is not a game where you casually place pieces and see what happens.
Knizia has a habit of doing this. Simple rules, very little text, and then somehow every move feels like it matters more than you expected. There’s no hidden information here, no clever card play, no story beats. Everything is out in the open, and every placement affects everyone else. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes a few turns later, when it’s already too late to fix it.
Through the Desert first appeared in the late 90s and has seen updated editions since. And honestly, it still feels very much like a product of that era. Not in a bad way, but in a very focused way. You share one map, you expand routes, you score points, and at the same time you slowly take options away from each other.
👥 2-5 players, ages 11+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designer: Reiner Knizia
🎨 Artwork: Hien Le & Damien Mammoliti
🏢 Publisher: Allplay (review copy provided)
Gameplay overview
The game is played on a large hex grid that represents open desert. Scattered across it are watering holes, a handful of oases, and natural borders like mountains. Each player controls five caravans, all in different colors, and each caravan starts with a single leader camel.
The goal is simple enough. You want to score points by expanding your caravans, collecting watering hole tokens, reaching oases, enclosing areas of the map, and ending the game in a position that slightly favours you more than everyone else.
The game begins with leader placement. Players take turns placing their five leaders, one at a time. Leaders must go on empty hexes, they can’t be placed on watering hole hexes, they can’t be next to oases, and they can’t be next to other leaders. Being next to watering holes is allowed. There’s also a restriction on color choice early on. On your first leader placement, you must pick a different color than players before you, if possible. These placements feel harmless at first, but they really aren’t.
Once all leaders are on the board, turns are very consistent. On your turn, you place two camels of any colors you like. Each camel must extend a caravan of the same color. You can branch caravans, bend them, stretch them out. Camels can be placed on empty hexes or on watering holes, but never on oases or occupied spaces. You may place camels next to caravans of other colors, including your own, but you may never place a camel next to another player’s caravan of the same color.
In the opening round, the first player, or the first two players in games of three to five, only places one camel on their first turn. After that, everyone places two camels per turn until the game ends.
Scoring happens throughout the game. When you place a camel on a watering hole, you immediately take that token. When a caravan connects to an oasis it hasn’t scored before, you take a five point token. On the river side of the board, the first time a caravan crosses the river, it scores five points as well.
Enclosing areas is where things get more interesting, and more risky. If you fully surround an area using a single caravan, with the help of mountains or map edges, you immediately take all watering holes inside. You also score five points for any enclosed oases your caravan wasn’t already connected to. That area is then sealed off and no one can place camels inside it again. At the end of the game, each empty hex inside your enclosed areas scores one additional point.
The game ends when one color of camels runs out, with the active player still finishing their turn, or in the rare case that someone has no legal placement. Final scoring includes largest caravan bonuses, collected tokens, and enclosed areas. Highest total wins.
Artwork, components, and visual design
This isn’t a game that tries to impress through illustration alone, but it does look good on the table. The board uses clear desert tones, and everything is easy to read, even once the map fills up. Mountains and borders are clearly defined and matter mechanically, which helps them feel like part of the game rather than decoration.
The camels are the main visual feature. They’re chunky, easy to grab, and clearly differentiated by color. You can tell at a glance who controls what, which is important because you’ll be looking at the board constantly. Leader camels have riders, which makes starting points obvious without needing extra markers.
The oasis pieces are small palm trees that stand out nicely against the board. Watering holes are simple hex tokens with point values. Nothing fancy, but very functional. As the game progresses and tokens disappear from the board, the changing state of the desert is easy to follow.
Overall, the presentation supports the game well. It doesn’t get in the way, and it doesn’t try to distract you from what’s actually happening.
Our experience
Turns are quick, but not casual. You’re always placing two camels, but those placements tend to come with a lot of thinking. The same-color restriction means that blocking isn’t something you choose to do or not do. It just happens. Sometimes you block someone on purpose. Sometimes you realise afterwards that you’ve done it accidentally.
Leader placement matters more than new players often expect. A leader placed slightly too far from useful space can end up supporting a caravan that never really does anything. And there’s no easy way to fix that later. To be fair, that’s also part of the appeal. Strong early placements feel earned, and weak ones stick with you.
As the board fills up, options narrow naturally. Early turns feel open, later turns feel tight. You’re often choosing between improving your own position or stopping someone else from completing something important. You can’t do both forever.
Scoring is fully visible at all times, which we like. You always know what people are aiming for, even if you can’t always stop them. Enclosures are especially tense. When they work, they’re very satisfying. When someone steps into your almost-finished enclosure at the last moment, it hurts in a very specific way.
The game end condition also matters more than it looks. Running out a single color can end the game faster than expected, and timing that correctly can make a big difference. Watching someone push a color while you’re still setting something up is stressful, in a way that feels intentional.
The Bazaar expansion
The Bazaar expansion adds several optional modules that layer new ideas on top of the base game. You can mix and match them depending on how much variation you want.
Rival nomads add endgame objectives that reward specific spatial achievements. They push players to think further ahead, sometimes chasing goals that aren’t always immediately visible on the board.
Djinns introduce global rules that change whenever someone connects to an oasis. These rules affect everyone and stay active until replaced. They add uncertainty and force adaptation, which some groups enjoy more than others.
Bazaars add trade routes between desert bazaars and distant villages. A caravan only scores when it connects a bazaar to a village, allowing players to claim stacked scoring tiles with increasing value. This encourages longer routes and creates new areas of competition, especially once space becomes limited.
Special watering holes replace some point tokens with effects like extra camels or set collection scoring. These can create strong tactical moments, sometimes at exactly the right time. They can also swing things in ways that feel a bit abrupt.
Overall, the expansion adds variety, but also more rules and more exceptions. We like it occasionally, but we don’t feel it’s essential. The base game already has plenty going on.
Our thoughts
What stands out most is how such a small ruleset manages to cause so much trouble. One placement may change how you look at the entire board. The game rewards planning, but it also forces you to react constantly. There’s very little room to drift through a session without paying attention.
Player count changes the experience quite a bit. With fewer players, the map is reduced, but there’s often less immediate interference, which allows plans to breathe a little longer. At higher player counts, the full map fills up quickly and competition over caravan colors becomes more direct. Either way, spreading your attention across all five colors matters.
The game is very clear about cause and effect. You can usually point at the board and understand exactly why things turned out the way they did. Over time, it feels less like solving a fixed puzzle and more like managing a system shaped by everyone’s choices.
We think Through the Desert works best for players who enjoy spatial games where interaction comes from placement rather than confrontation. If you like games with clear rules, visible scoring, and decisions that carry weight over time, this one makes sense.
If you’re looking for narrative, surprises, or constant twists, this probably won’t land the same way. But if you’re okay with a game that asks you to think ahead, accept mistakes, and occasionally watch a plan fall apart because of one well-placed camel, there’s a lot to appreciate here.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Allplay.
