Through the Desert is definitely worth the purchase. It’s a smart little game, and delivered in a quirky little package. It’s a game about camel placement (!) and building chains through the desert (just in case the game title was too subtle).

Gameplay

Right from the start, you have some important questions about the placement of your initial camels. This is a critical decision that will set you up (or ruin you) for the rest of the game. Admittedly, because you don’t know what you’re doing those first times until you’ve played it through it will be a bit of an enigmatic process. The in-game tutorial is quite thorough though.

So here’s the plan. The idea is to build chains of camels (of like colour) through the desert so as to reach watering holes, oases, and encompass sections of the map. Normally, you get the option of placing two of your camels (they come in five differently pastel colours like lavender and light red) and you can only expand from camels that are already placed. Of course, there are a few restrictions, like not being able to place a camel of a certain colour adjacent to a camel of the same colour belonging to any of your opponents.

With this in mind, there are two aspects to the game’s strategy. The first being a race to the biggest resources. The second being about strategically cutting off your opponents and blocking them. Getting your head around this second part takes a bit of finesse, and even after playing it well over a dozen or more times it almost eludes me. It’s not that the learning curve is steep, it’s just that there are a few little subtleties that are easy to overlook until you’re at the end of the game.

Points are scored for each oasis touched (this can be done multiple times by different coloured chains), and for each watering hole claimed (only available once), and a single coin for any section of the board completely enclosed by one of your camel chains and/or the edge of the board. The endgame occurs when one player runs out of one type of colour of camel. At which point, players score extra points for having the longest chain of a particular colour.

Remembering to juggle all these factors into place is where the finesse kicks in and why initial placement can ruin you if you don’t have some kind of foresight. My only recommendation for new players is to try and have some distance between yours and their camels of like colour in initial placement.

Implementation

I have played ont he original board game a few times and what you see is pretty much a faithful rendition of the original game. I find the cute little camel gronks to be amusing and the animations and graphics serve well enough.

However, here would lie my main critiques. It is possible to get confused about the colouring of the camels if you don’t look. There are two colours on each piece, one for which player they belong to and another for their train colour. Remember to double check before placement because otherwise you could screw your important initial set up. Similarly, I say the graphics serve – but they don’t dazzle. I’m normally somewhat critical of games that serve a good game but don’t take advantage of the visual opportunities that the iPad can offer. I don’t think this game truly does, but I’m still able to get absorbed in the gameplay.

The game does gets kudos because the AI is enough that I can’t just beat it without much thought. Typically, the game just beats me by a few points at the last hurdle (see above about camel chain lengths). So either I’m not learning my lessons in playing, or the AI is that good. I wouldn’t be deterred by this, being only just beaten can be just as satisfying as winning soundly. It’s that last little inch of scoring where you tell yourself you can do better that makes you want to play again.

Verdict 6/10 – In principle, I think this game is a good little package that is definitely worth the acquisition. The replay value is good, but it just gets let down a little bit by its basic rendition. Still, get it and have fun.