1-100 Players
Designers: Matthew Dunstan, Rory Muldoon
Artist: Rory Muldoon
Publisher: Postmark Games
Take on the high seas with 3 dice, a pen and a sheet with Voyages. You’ll be managing the winds, taking on tasks with your crew and encountering all sorts of stuff. Does this PnP sail smoothly or does it sink?
Gameplay
Each turn, a player rolls 3 dice, and players assign them to one of three aspects. One will dictate the direction the ship goes and one on its speed. Whenever you land on an icon exactly (or hit land), you gain the associated benefits. The final die is assigned to the duties of the ship, and it varies for each of the different Voyages available for the game, 5 at the time of this review. Accumulating certain bonuses will give you stars, which are worth points and also trigger the end of the game.
Scoring is each star you got, each region and Island visited, and various other bonuses also depending on the voyage.
Solo Gameplay
Same as Multiplayer, but stars do not trigger the end of the game, instead it’s a fixed number of turns. You have to get at least 3 stars, and then you check if you beat your own score.
The game also offers a solo campaign, where the better you perform at each map the more benefits you get. However, there are additional challenges to be faced.
Components
Each player needs its own sheet and writing utensil, and three shared dice. The maps are well laid and iconography is quite clear. Each map has its own set of additional rules, but all work very well within the base system of Voyage 1, while also adding its own unique forms of scoring and challenges. Some have you facing enemy ships, while others have hidden islands to be discovered.
Conclusion
Easily this became one of my most played PnPs as soon as I first got it. There are a ton of ways to accomplish your goals on each map, but they are mostly mutually exclusive, so each turn you have gruelling choices to make. And with each new map, the game gets better for the variety, though none of the maps are duds, even the first one. It’s a quick, simple, challenging and rewarding experience.
Score: 9/10
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