Review: WAYFARERS OF THE SOUTH TIGRIS gets a little lost

I love overly complex games. I love difficult and intricate rules. I love the strategy levels and unique mechanics within board games. Wayfarers of The South Tigris is a pretty good game that offers a lot of unique combinations of mechanics and a high level of difficulty, but sometimes goes overboard with its complexities and different game systems.

The gameplay is simple in premise, players purchase new parts for their growing city and landscape through a series of different actions, keeping track of their progression. But the way to get all these things is terribly complex. In some ways, it’s really nice to have a game that absolutely challenges my ability to juggle so many parts. But after a while, it suffers from too many mechanics that force a player to do one thing or another, instead of just relying on interesting choices and challenging strategies.

Imagine a first person shooter with very simple controls and only one shooting button. But then, to fire your gun, you have to load every single bullet, and every time you load a bullet, there’s another mini-game. Also, locking onto targets requires thinking two or three steps ahead. While this might be challenging and very interesting overall, it takes away the thrill and fun from just running and shooting within a video game. It loses a lot of its accessibility and replayability due to overly complex steps while trying to build a city.

It’s a good game overall, well made and unique in many ways, but I can’t imagine teaching it to anyone who isn’t a huge fan of board games that could easily handle multiple layers of mechanics. Each of the mechanics are well done, fairly balanced and fun, but too many feel over the top, like one or two too many layers of icing on the cake. If you are a fan of the other games that fall under the Raiders series, this is a great game to check out. However, I couldn’t in good faith recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have a solid background in board games and is willing to delve into the depths of complex mechanics for a relatively simple reward.