Base price: $20.
1+ players.
Play time: 45 – 90 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 1; especially with this one that’s all you’re going to get.
Full disclosure: A review copy of EXIT: Adventures in Catan was provided by KOSMOS.
CATAN Week continues! This time I’m covering EXIT: Adventures in Catan from KOSMOS! Exciting stuff. You don’t see a lot of IP crossovers from KOSMOS or EXIT, so the newer ones slowly branching out is lovely. People loved the Lord of the Rings EXIT, as far as I heard, for instance. So why not tie into one of the biggest board fames that’s known? Makes pretty good sense to me. So let’s pack up your bricks and ore and set sail for an Adventure in Catan!
In EXIT: Adventures in CATAN, you’re a new traveler settling down in the bold new land of Catan. You’ve brought friends , family, and a bunch of sheep. Not the most helpful, you’ll admit, but sheeps is sheeps. Unfortunately, CATAN comes with its own challenges. Food, water, and the rumor of some Robber stealing wildly from other village. If you’re riding along with me, though, you’ve already seen plenty of weird situations that only puzzles can solve. What’s next? Only one way to find out!
Overall: 8.75 / 10
Overall, there’s a lot to like about EXIT: Adventures in CATAN! I think that this obviously positions itself as a gift or experience for fans of CATAN / Settlers of CATAN looking to position their knowledge of and love for CATAN in a fun way, and it works. Unsurprisingly, for an EXIT game, but it still achieves its vaguely-stated goal. Looking for a gift for a CATAN fan? This one’s probably it. There’s also a lot of fun art and a fairly immersive storyline. There’s a good amount of story and the gameplay consistently rewards players who’ve played CATAN without having to do something very complex and intriguing. I particularly like that this reinforces that there are non-aggressively ways to play CATAN, and that you might find yourself rewarded for cooperative play both in terms of people being nice to you and you having more opportunities to score down the line.
There were, of course, some issues as well. They seem to have switched to stickers instead of shrink-wrapping the game, which, I get, but those stickers do not come off easily. I tore a chunk out of the back of the game box when I was trying to open it up and I worried for a while since, you know, photography. It doesn’t look great, but it’s not ruined. There’s also some production issues? The moon puzzle specifically, at least in my copy, needed a few tweaks. Or just look at BGG. I’m not inclined to blame the publisher, but that was a little unsatisfying. I think this might have been my favorite EXITs otherwise.
So all in all, my big takeaway here is that EXIT + another franchise or IP tends to be pretty good, so it may serve to start exploring to see what else they can do, KOSMOS has the Cascadia license; that would be pretty good, for instance. Or a Seafarers or Cities + Knights? Maybe a crossover with Carcassonne? The Lord of the Rings one was also very popular. The EXIT games continue to hit their stride, and it’s great to see as a fan. If you’re looking for more spins on a classic franchise, you love puzzles, or you just love CATAN, EXIT: Adventures in Catan might just be perfect for you! In the meantime, I kind of want to go try out Seafarers.
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