The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples is a standalone sequel to a game I haven’t played.
But it plays the same so let’s see how it goes.
Players have now reached the legendary city of gold and they have started to explore it. What will they find there?
The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples Game Play
Set up the game board according to several ways shown in the rulebook. On the board are temples with coloured gems around the outside, furthest away from the players starting point.
Big long blockades are face down on the connections between tiles. There are also some random guardian tiles around the map.
As with any deck-building game, there are piles of cards to buy with 6 piles that start available every game and another 12 put to one side for now. They might come into the game later when the initial 6 run out.
Players also get a 1 player piece on the board, a player board to put things and a deck of 8 cards in their colour. This deck is shuffled and they draw 4.
A turn is played over 3 phases: Play, Discard, Draw.
Game Play
Phase 1 – Play any number of cards from your hand to move, then buy 1 card
Placed played cards above the player’s expedition board one at a time
To move, the symbol and power on the played card must match the space you move into. Leftover power can be used to move further but it cannot be combined with additional cards.
The first player to clear a blockade by playing the right combination of symbols keeps it and can continue moving after. If movement stops next to a Guardian, flip it face up and activate it even if it was face up already. These will give negative effects on the player.
When a player arrives at a temple, they take 1 of the gems.
When buying new cards, yellow cards in hand are worth their power in gold, each other card is worth 0.5 and gold coins are worth 1 each. The cost is printed on the card and the purchased card goes into the discard pile from the market.
If there is a gap left because the last card in the pile was purchased earlier, the player can buy any affordable card from the 12 reserve piles then move the rest of those cards to fill the gap.
Phase 2 – Discard played cards and any number from hand
That is all
Phase 3 – Draw up to 4 cards in hand
If you can’t draw because the deck is empty, shuffle the discard pile into a new deck as standard.
Game End
If a player gets a gem from each temple and gets to the starting treasure chamber the last turn triggers.
The round ends when everyone has played even turns.
If only one player has left the Golden Temple, they win with tiebreakers available if multiple players leave on the same turn.
Setup & Rulebook
Setup is fiddly as there are a lot of things to place on the board. You also need to find the correct boards on the correct side and put them in the right place.
The rulebook is good at the top level, but when you need to dive into the detail of specific cards or actions it’s found lacking.
Components & Artwork
Standard card and cardboard across the board. The cards are those mini half-sized cards which is a bit weird for a deck-builder but with so little info on them, it works OK.
The art is OK. It fits the theme well.
Ease of Teaching & Accessibility
This is a basic, family level game and it is pretty straightforward.
Cards are in hand so there is some hidden information but someone can help. It’s not a big deal revealing cards to ask for help.
The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples Summary
So I like deck-builders and this was an interesting way to use the system. Playing cards to move is a fun way to do things and gathering the symbols to delve deeper is great… when you get them.
It’s satisfying moving 4-5 spaces on a turn because you planned well and drew REALLY well.
But when you don’t it’s a bit of a dead turn. In a race like this, you can see yourself dropping back which hurts. The game can swing as consecutive bad turns pass around the table.
I hear the base game is better? It’s pretty much the same but it follows a linear path instead of going out to three locations and back. looking at reviews, people seem to prefer this? But I like the idea of forging my own way and deciding on the best route to take.
Sometimes your hand dictates that the shortest route won’t be the fastest, I like this, it feels thematic.
But as solid as the game is, I didn’t find it interesting enough to feel I need to play it multiple times.
Jesta ThaRogue