I am not a patient person. I also frequently play games with analysis paralysis-prone players. These facts combined frequently result in my declaration that certain games just shouldn’t be played at the highest player counts. Thus, simultaneous board games, with their promise of crunchy decisions but little to no downtime, seem to be the perfect solution. Flip/roll-and-writes aside, it’s hard to think of many successful examples of such games that will satisfy gamers seeking a more medium-to-heavy weight experience.

Enter Creature Caravan, Ryan Laukat’s medium-weight 2024 attempt at this rarefied design category. Creature Caravan sees 1-4 players traversing their ever-expanding tableau of mystical creatures across the land of Arzium over 60-90 minutes, all while tactically making trades and fighting zombies for points.

Gameplay Overview:

On each of 12 rounds, players will roll their own five dice and then engage in dice-action selection.

Points are acquired from four main sources:

• Creatures in your caravan tableau
• Total distance travelled across the land
• Trades
• Defeated zombies

Each personal playerboard contains the same basic dice action placement spots.

Most point-earning actions, including moving, trading, and fighting, can be accomplished using dice-action spots on your playerboard. Players will have opportunities to add creature-cards to their tableau that offer more efficient versions of these and other dice-action placement spots. Playing a creature card to your tableau is a free action, though you must pay the cost.

Trading involves first collecting either knapsacks or coins and then trading one type of these goods for points, which increase based on the size of your trade. Importantly, there is a time constraint such that if one player does a 3-coin trade, anyone else who also wants to do a 3-coin trade must accomplish it in the same round or the following round; afterwards, that trade is locked for the game. The status of available trades is logged with a shared trade board and player cubes.

Zombies work slightly differently. You must first encounter a zombie on the map and then find a suitable zone for fighting. Zombie battles are purely based on the sum of your pip values across multiple dice-action fighting spots. Similar to trading, there is a 2-round timing constraint for fighting zombies of any given value.

At the end of each round, players will place a tent on the map at their current location, and this may grant special location-dependent rewards.

The overall table presence at the end of a 2-player game is shown here.

Game Experience:

Creature Caravan is a relatively easy teach, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to master. Players start with no bread, the main resource for playing cards, and there’s no guaranteed income, so you generally need to take some basic actions to slowly acquire bread. Any card that you acquire can also be discarded at any time for one bread. It’s not uncommon to play zero cards the first couple of rounds of the game, especially if you’re saving for a powerful/expensive one.

The zombie board is shown here at game-end. It is possible for multiple players to fight zombies at the same strength, but only if they time their actions well.

Choosing which cards to play versus discard for bread can be a really challenging decision, because there are multiple factors to consider. Cards may provide some combination of scoring opportunities, ongoing abilities, and unique dice-action spots. Some of these, like getting an extra die for the game, are expensive but worth it if played early. Each card also has at least one (sometimes multiple) “tags” among ten total possibilities, and many scoring conditions, as well as card abilities, are predicated on possessing minimum thresholds of tags in your tableau.

Both the trade and zombie boards can award big points, but I usually prefer to trade. The zombie board only awards points, whereas trade also grants bread proportional to your trade value. Most zombie slots likely require two or more high-pip value dice to be achieved, whereas trading only requires a single 2-value die. Each un-battled zombie you encounter will subtract minimal points at game-end.

The central caravan map is shown here, dotted with campsites built at the end of each round.

Overall, the game has a nice arc because it’s super tight in the beginning, but is often overflowing with options by game’s end if you’re doing well. Granted, if you cannot find the right set of synergistic cards, you may feel like you’re struggling the whole game; it can be rough on first-time players. One critique I have, however, is that I wish the game offered more to do with leftover resources, particularly bread. Tableaus are capped at 12 cards, and there are no cards or actions in the game that allow for bread-to-points conversions.

Regarding player interaction, the main source is the zombie and trade boards because of the 2-round achievement limit. These boards are more competitive at higher player counts, but they’re still not hugely interactive, other than when they occasionally encourage you to trade or fight a bit earlier than planned to avoid missing out. The rulebook does mention that players can negotiate card exchanges at any point of the game, an instruction that feels a bit tacked on. This mechanism has rescued me in a pinch a few times when I desperately needed a specific card tag, but exchanges have been completely ignored in many games; this may vary based on playing group. Also, the playtime is great at all player-counts as the game is truly simultaneous, other than occasionally waiting for some AP-prone players.

Each card has a unique depiction of Ryan Laukat’s beautiful impressionistic art.

How about the luck factor? The game gives you a decent amount to do with low-pipped dice, like moving in valleys, making trades, and gaining cards. Additionally, some cards allow dice mitigation, and it is possible to collect fruit from the map, which eliminates pip requirements from certain cards. The biggest source of randomness is the huge deck and trying to find cards of the proper tags, which are not evenly distributed. A distribution analysis in the rulebook or on a player-aid would have been helpful. Some creatures even require a specific card (out of 135 unique cards) to maximally score. It’s also worth mentioning that some cards are clearly better early game while others are better in the late game. We have house-ruled a draft for starting cards, which the rulebook does not officially suggest, but is an obvious improvement for experienced players.

Finally, how does this compare to other Ryan Laukat games? Creature Caravan is very much a Eurogame; there is no storytelling element or randomness other than the dice and cards. Players have control of how they move on the map, and zombies can be completely avoided if desired. The main consistency with previous works is the gorgeous artwork, which really comes through in the creature cards here, each with a unique Laukat impressionist take of a fantastical being.

Final Thoughts:

Creature Caravan is a fantastic entry into the simultaneous medium-weight Eurogame category. The best part is the deck of 135 completely unique cards with beautiful artwork by Ryan Laukat. These cards will constantly challenge players to decide which to add to their tableau and which to discard for resources. They also introduce inherent randomness, especially when trying to collect specific creature tags; having good card-draw and being open to exchanges with other players can help here. Nonetheless, the game mostly feels like multi-player solitaire, other than light interaction on the trade and zombie boards. The randomized board setup and card-draw, as well as multiple routes to points, make for great replay value. If you’re an inpatient player like myself, don’t wait to take the journey that is Creature Caravan.

Final Score: 4 stars— this medium-weight Eurogame journey has lots of crunchy decisions and little downtime

Hits:
• Truly simultaneous play
• 135 cards with unique functions and art
• Crunchy tactical decisions

Misses:
• Opening-hand draft should be the default
• Card “tag” distribution list should’ve been included
• Only lightly player-interactive