Summary
👥 A game for 2 – 10 players
⏳ Play time is 20 minutes
🏢 Publisher is Floodgate Games
Introduction
Landmarks is a word game of hidden paths and clever clues. Your party is lost deep in an island jungle, relying on you to guide them to safety and treasure! In this jungle, every word matters. Use strategic wordplay to send a chain of one-word clues. The connections between them will create a path leading to fortune and glory.
Let’s get it on the table
Landmarks can be played in cooperative mode or competitive mode.
For both modules, you place the mate in the centre of the table. A guide is chosen who will give the hints. This one then takes the cloth and chooses a card from the pile.
In cooperative mode, the green and yellow cards are used, while in competitive mode you use the red cards. Then place the card in the holder and make sure the other players cannot see the card.
Green and yellow cards have a different level, green is for beginners and if you have played the game several times you can go for a yellow card.
After this, the guide writes the three starting words on the card on a separate tile. The guide then places these tiles on the island mat as shown on the card.
If you play the cooperative module, open the board on that side. If you play the competitive module, lay it open to that side and write two teams on it.
Place seven empty tiles on the game board and keep the rest nearby.
Laten we gaan spelen!
The game is played over several rounds until the team has won or lost. You have won once you have dealt with the exit and lost if more curses have been found than the number of amulets.
Rounds consist of the following steps:
Step one give hint
Step two place the hint
Step three explore the island
Step four check
Step one hint: The guide will now try to give a one-word hint towards the the group. The hint should refer to one of the other lines on the mat. The guide wants to direct the group to a particular field which could be, a treasure, an amulet, water or the exit. You may only hint a word and give no further contact.
Step two place the hint: The group will now decide on which square the hint should be placed. A field may be chosen if it borders the tile lying on the mat once the group has chosen where it will be placed it is placed on the playing field .
Step three explore the island: the guide now looks at the map to see what the group has found in the chosen field. This could be, It is a trap, but it is also a treasure or nothing has been found here and we have to move on. If something has been found then it is ticked on the game board
Step four check: if the exit has not been found and there are no tiles with it on the board, you have all lost. If a tile is still there, you can continue playing and the next round starts at step one. If the exit is found and you have found at least one treasure, you have won!
In competitive mode, two teams play against each other to be the first to find four treasures. Both teams now have their own guide and they try to guide their own team to the treasures.
At the start of the game, the team that comes second gets to start with an amulet and crosses it off on the game board.
There are no tiles on the board, so any tile may be used to give a hint, nor are there any fields with water, a trap or an exit on the map. The treasure found is awarded to the team regardless of which team finds the treasure. There are also neutral treasures on the map, which are awarded to the team that finds them.
The team that cannot break a curse because an amulet cannot be found because another team already has it immediately loses the game therefore the other team wins.
A team can also win once it has found four treasures, these may now be neutral treasures or treasures of its own colour.
Conclusie & eindscore
Difficulty: 1.38/ 5
Re-playability: 8
Our score: 7.5 out of 10 dice
With Landmarks, you get a fun family/party game. It’s a bit like Codenames if you play the competitive module. We have only played the cooperative module and we already really like it. Sometimes you do have to think carefully about the tiles you’re going to place, especially if they have to connect on 2 lines but it’s just really funny to see a tile just not being placed where you intended.
The rules are very clear and t fun is that you can always choose the path yourself but you will have to make sure you grab enough water along the way to keep playing. Sometimes that can still be a challenge because you may not have enough tiles to find everything on the board. You will have to be creative with words during the game which means that each game will also be different every time, if you are limited with some words, you will have to make up something with which you can quickly move to another word and that just makes the game very fun. The box contains a lot of cards, which gives you a lot of replayability.
We really like this one and are happy to put it on the table.
🙏Thanks to the publisher for this review copy
