Cavemen: The Quest for Fire: A game where you play a tribe of Cavemen Hunting, Gathering and coming up with Ideas sounded awesome.
It is…
Cavemen: The Quest for Fire is a card-drafting game in which players take the role of tribal leaders. The tribes compete for opportunities to hunt dinosaurs, recruit tribesmen, and discover new technologies, vying to be the first with enough knowledge and prestige to invent fire and usher in the age of modern humanity!
You have two resources to manage: Food and Teeth. You must spend Food each turn in order to keep your Tribe from starving. Teeth indicate prestige among the tribes. Use Teeth to bid for the conch and to acquire Cavemen and Caves.
Each turn, cards are drawn from the deck to fill a common Card Pool. Players take actions based on what is available in the pool. For example, if a Beast is drawn into the Card Pool, you can hunt it for Food and claim its Teeth as a sign of your bravery.
If you hold the conch during the Action Phase, you benefit by taking your Action first and taking a second Action after everyone else has gone once. Players can bid Teeth to take control of the Conch from another player. This can be important to get the first pick of the cards in the Card Pool.
The game features 21 different inventions that allow players to evolve diverse strategies, capitalizing on their tribe’s individual strengths. There are challenging decisions every turn as players must evaluate what resources are available, guess what their opponents will do, and weigh the amount of risk they’re willing to take.
I enjoyed this. I love a game where the choices are hard and resources are JUST scarce enough that it’s heartbreaking spending the precious few you have left.
Cavemen: The Quest for Fire Art
I could be wrong, but from what I’ve read the artwork is photos of models of Cavemen and Dinosaurs. It stands out, everyone mentioned how it looks which is usually the sign of good (or bad!) art.
Choices
There are 2 resources, teeth and food.
Teeth are needed to bid for the conch (first player) and recruit new cavemen as well as pay for other stuff.
Food is also needed to recruit stuff but also feed your people. If you don’t feed your people, they die.
Spend or save, tough choice, every turn.
Caves
Caves give a population limit. You start with a Cave large enough for 4 people and 2 Cavemen, leaving 2 gaps. As you recruit, and you need to recruit, you fill up a cave quickly so it’s a scrap with the other players to add the next one you find to your collection.
So the winner is the person that invents fire. To do this you need to have ‘Thinkers’ with enough Ideas to invent Fire PLUS the Conch.
Good game. More filler than a ‘proper’ game but I’d be happy to play Cavemen: The Quest for Fire again if I can.
Update September 2022
All I remember about this game is the artwork and a mildly positive feeling about gameplay. I have literally never seen this game since, in any group, sale or even conversation. It would be interesting to try it again 9+ years later.
Jesta ThaRogue