Footprints Review
Advert: this game was gifted by Matagot & Friends, this has not affected our opinion.
Knowing little about it, when I first saw a glimpse of Footprints at Essen 2023 it looked like a stone age racing game. A little part of me was hoping for Flintstone style cars powered by feet underneath and certainly the occasional yabadabadoo! I’ve subsequently discovered it isn’t really a racing game, but it kinda is… read on to find out more!
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Setup
Set up the main board, placing cave tokens in the relevant spaces. Give each player a random board, matching components and cards as well as a meeple in their chosen colour. The rulebook has a nice way of grouping these things for easier set up each time which I have adopted.
All players take their deck of cards and removes the two leader cards, shuffling the remaining thirteen cards. They will then take the top seven cards and shuffle the leader card of their choice into them. The other leader card is returned to its bag. Players will also need to set up their individual player boards with markers and tokens.
Players get three footprint cards as per the advanced setup and choose one to keep, these are individual scoring objectives.
Resources will need to be in piles within reach of all players. As will the remaining footprint cards and fire cards. Decide on a first player who will place their meeple on one of the starting tiles taking the immediate bonus, players continue to do this in clockwise order. You are ready to play Footprints! It takes a few minutes max.
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Gameplay
Footprints is a game of chalking up the most points to win the game. These are granted by creating engravings, cave paintings, upgrading your tech tracks and getting to the end of the map.
On your turn you will play one of your cards from your hand of four cards. Using either the top or bottom actions, the top granting you movement, the bottom allowing for tech progression on your personal board. Leaders only have one action which needs to be used wisely.
How far you can move on certain terrain is dictated by your tech tracks, when moving, if you pass over icons on the main board, you will immediately get that bonus, whether it be resources, a footprint card or a fire card, the latter of which gives a useful bonus and one can be played on your turn.
Once all players have exhausted their deck, the game ends and scores are tallied.
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What it’s like
At first glance, you would be forgiven into thinking this sounds very similar to the Quest for El Dorado. It being a race across different terrains using a deck of cards. In that way, it kind of is, but you sort of have to unthink that! Footprints is the most uncompetitive race I have encountered in a board game. Sometimes, you will not have to finish the race, or come first, to win the game!
Yet, even knowing all this, I feel like Footprints is a race, because intuitively you want to get to the end, first! But it really is not a race, it’s a niche efficiency puzzle that sees you play fourteen cards to seemingly do the impossible… finish the ‘race’ and score lots of points. The game encourages you to improve your tracks and gather resources before making a dash for the finish, but whether you will make it or not, teeters at risk as you get closer to the end of the game.
Footprints is quite a solo experience and other than the time it takes for players to take their turn, there isn’t much difference in gameplay at any player count. This also means you can compare your final score to the solo game table in the instructions. My early scores in this game were terrible! In fact, I have only notched up a respectable score a couple of times. Some may see this as massively disheartening but actually it spurred me on to strive to do better. Had I not known that scores above 80 were very good, I probably wouldn’t have played it as much as I have. I wanted the strategy to click and for me to find out how to unlock a better one.
In doing so, I found more to explore and more strategy to investigate. I’m still quite capable of a poor score, but at least I can now admire Footprints even more. That said, I have found the luck of the draw, or rather fortuitous shuffling before the game or not can make quite a big difference to how the game will play out. It certainly feels like there are certain routes that are more likely to secure victories than others. In fairness the rulebook offers these hints and tips very openly.
As you’ve probably gathered there is a solo mode, that I have played… just multiplayer!
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Table Presence
Don’t let the box art deceive you, this is a beige game to look at. I know some people that like their Euro games dry and beige, they will not be disappointed by Footprints!
The board is impressive at first glance sprawled on the table but it soon becomes fairly bland. The card art is largely tonally brown and for me, uninspiring. Don’t get me wrong the art is fine, but all cards in a deck have the same illustration, except the leader cards. The components are good, for example you have a dual layer player board. However, little details bother me, like the engraving icons being at a jaunty angle on the player boards.
The rulebook is clear enough. It is a touch lack lustre, with acres of white space. It feels like a prototype rulebook that never got revisited.
Readers of my Tucana Builders review will remember me hoping a certain type of insert wasn’t going to catch on… well Footprints has adopted it too.
I think overall, the game could’ve really benefitted from some additional graphic design. There was certainly room for improvement here.
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Final thoughts on Footprints
Footprints offers a strategically tight game that is enticing. It excels in offering more tactics than the relatively straight forward rules give it credit. The single deck that you only play through once really adds to the decision making process.
Overall, I think Footprints is a good game. It’s an overused phrase but it is solid. Certainly a board game I would always be happy to play! I will certainly revisit it too, but I fear it will struggle to jostle itself to the table at my house on a regular basis amidst so much competition.
Oh and just in case you haven’t gotten the gist yet, it is not a racing game, although it kinda is too!
Key Facts
Number of players: 1 to 6
Board Game Review Recommended Age: 12+
Publisher’s Recommended Age: 10+
Playing Time: 50 minutes
Setting Up and Take Down Time: 5 minutes
Designers: Eilif Svensson, Åsmund Svensson, and Geir André Wahlquist
Publisher: Chilifox Games / Matagot Friends
RRP: £38.99
Summary
Footprints is a good game that would have probably benefitted from a little more ‘design’. The gameplay works and once it is discovered there is a lovely arc to the flow of the game.
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Artwork and Components
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Complexity
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Instructions
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Interaction
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Value for Money
Overall
Pros
- Trying to beat solo player scores even when playing multiplayer.
- Every card played counts
- Tight decision making
- Plays up to six players
Cons
- The graphic design
- Multiplayer solitaire
- Luck of the cards
- There are occasions when it is hard to get moving
Need more games?
If you already own Footprints and enjoy it, or are looking for other inspiration, you might also like these similar games:
- The Quest for El Dorado
- Prehistories
- Oh Crab!
- Flamme Rouge
Buy Tucana Builders
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Reviewer’s Note
For clarity: we don’t get paid for our reviews. However, we were kindly gifted this game by Matagot and Friends. We have tried not to let this affect our review in any way.
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