Trekking Through History Educational Board Game
If you have been around here for any length of time, you know I tend to lean outside of history text for our homeschool history studies. We have created unit studies, done lapbooks, sung songs, created entire courses from scratch, watched movies, and used tons of historical fiction – all in the name of making history come to life! Trekking Through History Educational Board Game is the newest addition to that collection.
{Disclosure: I received Trekking Through History for free and was compensated for my time in writing this review. All my opinions are my own, honest thoughts and I was not required to post a positive review. Your experience may vary. Please see my full Disclosure Policy for more details.}
Trekking Through History Educational Board Game Review
Trekking Through History is an educational board game for ages 10+ from Underdog Games that features 108 historical events from around the world.
You can experience great moments in history like:
- 2686 BCE: Play senet with the Egyptians
- 342 BCE: Hit the books with Alexander the Great
- 1717: Hear Johann Sebastian Back Perform
- 1903: Flying with the Wright Brothers
- 1990: Excavate the T-Rex “Sue”
While you aren’t diving deeply into any of the people/places/events, you are getting a taste of what the significance was of each thing, sparking interest in learning more. For example, ” What is senet?” We looked it up:
Senet is an ancient Egyptian board game. Its full ancient name was senet net hab, which means ‘game of passing through’; this is because the aim of the game is to get from one end of the board to the other.
Playing Trekking Through History
When I opened the box I was a little apprehensive about how many different pieces there were. I don’t tend to enjoy games with complicated game play. But I am happy to report that the instructions were simple to follow, with clear directions and images to help you set up and play the game.
While Trekking Through History is for ages 10+, we found a great way for our grandson to be included (and still learning) without having to learn the intricacies of the game! He was our “banker”. While there isn’t a banker in this game, there is a lot of doling out Experience Tokens and transferring of crystals back and forth as they are earned and used.
Lucas manned the container of Experience Tokens and Time Crystals for us. He loves doing this so much he sits through the entire game with all of us, listening to and learning from the history cards we each choose and read.
As for the rest of us, we were finding the strategy of the game to be fun and engaging. There are 3 main rounds (days) where you work to put together a trek by visiting historical events in chronological order. At the end of the 3 days there are other points that play in, like extra crystals and how long your treks were (the more cards in a trek the better)!
Things to Note About Trekking Through History
1. The Game is made of high quality pieces
All the game components are thick and sturdy. Cards have a laminated surface so they are easy to handle (and clean if you get food or drink on them).
2. You need ample table space to play
There are multiple components to the game including:
- a large rectangular playmat that reminded me of a mouse pad (neoprene material)
- the supply tray for Experience Tokens and Crystals
- An Itinerary for each person playing
- the Clock where players move their Pocket Watches around to determine order of play
- each person’s treks
For this reason you will need ample table or floor space to play the game.
3. I highly recommend getting set up and then diving in to play
We started with a quick read through to set the game up and get the gist of gameplay. But then we just dove in and started playing, checking the rules or provided How-To -Play video as we went. I think doing this made it quicker and smoother for us to learn the game flow.
4. I was really impressed with the storage for Trekking Through History
Seems silly, but if you have lots of games like we do, you will inevitably come across games that do not fit well in their boxes, don’t have a great way to keep their pieces organized, etc. Trekking Through History does a great job with providing a sturdy box with clear organizers for all the pieces. {SEE TIME LAPSE OF PUTTING THE GAME AWAY ABOVE}
