David Bernier
Canada
Quebec
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After over 30 games of Through the Desert, I thought it would be a sympathic idea to just post a simple review of this little gem of a game.
The idea behind this is for those of you that are in the same situation as me, which is: Sharing life with this special someone but this special someone hates board games with a passion. 
So for those of you that are looking forward to share your hobby with your girlfriend while still having fun, here comes Through the Desert!
SETUP:
- It's a quick game to setup. Take under 5 minutes to setup and be ready to play. Unfold the board, place the camel piles and tokens on the side and that's it, you're ready!
RULES:
- Reading the rules won't take you long. Pour yourself a nice cup of your favorite morning drink or a glass of your favorite evening drink. then you start reading the few pages of the rules, look at the example images and 20 minutes later you got it.
- Teaching the rules will be as easy as reading them. Pour your group their favorite drinks and before they empty their cups or glasses you'll be starting placing camels on the board.
GAMEPLAY:
- This game is easy to learn, easy to play and have a short learning curve. But the more you play the more you start to realise that you have to think a little more about your camel placement and that's when you realise this game is a little gem. It's easy mechanics is where it shines since it won't slow you down on putting together your strategy. All you'll have to think about is how can I score points and how can I prevent the others from scoring points.
A turn is really simple: You place 2 camels from the 5 pools of different colors. You have to form caravans and connect them to oasis and grabing water points on the way.
A game can last from 20 minutes to 45 minutes depending on the number of players. I find that TtD is best played with 2 but I can see it shining a lot with more players that are in the mood for it.
Theres lots of different ways to score points:
IN-GAME POINTS:
- Grabbing water points scattered throughout the board represented by tokens with points ranging from 1 to 3
- Connecting your caravans to the numerous oasis represented by Palm trees will give you 5 points
END-GAME POINTS:
- The longest caravan of a color score 10 points, so you can score big points there is you have the longest caravans of different colors
- Encircled areas scores 1 point per tile in the encircled area. This is another area where you can score huge amount of points but is more difficult to attemps. High risk for high value here.
CONCLUSION:
We could play 3, 4, 5 games in row easy. It's one of those perfect little game that you just want to play and play. It's the only game in my collection that my awesome gf will play with me, this and Pandemic that she offered me last Christmas.
If you enjoy light games with lots of fun and easy mechanics, grab it ASAP!
Thanks for reading my clumsy review! 
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Michael Cowles
United Kingdom
Christchurch
Dorset
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Good review of a good game
With more players the game changes, the initial placement becomes more critical and with careful early moves you can squeeze out rivals and create space where only your colours can be placed 
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