Cartographers Review

Intro

Cartographers drops you into the boots of a royal mapmaker tasked with charting the northern wilderness for Queen Gimnax. This flip-and-write game has you drawing terrain shapes on your personal map sheet, trying to fulfill the queen's ever-changing demands while dodging those pesky Dragul raiders who want to mess up your careful plans.

The game works brilliantly for 1-4 players (though it technically supports up to 100 if you're running some kind of convention mega-event), takes about 45 minutes, and sits comfortably in easy-to-learn territory. With a solid 7.57 rating, it's earned nominations for several major awards including the Kennerspiel des Jahres. Think of it as accessible enough for family game night but with enough tactical decisions to keep seasoned gamers engaged.

How It Plays

Each round, someone flips a card from the explore deck, revealing a terrain shape you'll draw on your map. These polyomino pieces come in different terrain types like forests, villages, farms, and water, each with their own placement rules. Forests can go anywhere, but farms need to be adjacent to other farms or water, and villages can't touch each other.

The clever bit is the scoring system. Four edict cards get revealed at the start, each tied to a specific season. Spring might reward you for having forests along the edges of your map, while summer could give points for large clusters of villages. You're constantly juggling these shifting priorities, trying to set yourself up for multiple scoring opportunities.

Then there are the ambush cards mixed into the explore deck. When one of these pops up, you pass your map to another player, and they get to draw a Dragul outpost wherever they want (within reason). These outposts mess with your scoring and create dead zones on your map, adding a delicious layer of tension every time someone reaches for the deck.

After four seasons, you tally up points from the edicts plus any coins you've collected, and whoever has the most reputation wins the title of greatest cartographer in the realm.

Highlights

The simultaneous play is fantastic. Everyone draws at the same time, so there's no downtime even with four players. You're constantly engaged, watching what others are doing while planning your next moves. It creates this wonderful buzz of activity around the table.

What really makes Cartographers shine is how the scoring objectives force you to think spatially in different ways. One edict might want you to surround mountains with a specific terrain type, while another rewards large connected areas. You're never just mindlessly filling in your map—every placement matters.

The ambush mechanism is brilliant because it's not purely mean. Sure, someone's drawing a Dragul outpost on your map, but they can't just drop it anywhere. The placement rules still apply, and sometimes their "attack" actually helps you by filling in a tricky spot. It adds player interaction without feeling overly aggressive.

The solo mode deserves special mention. It uses the same core gameplay but with a few tweaks that make it genuinely engaging rather than just a multiplayer game with the other players removed. The ambush cards still create tension, and you're racing against a timer that feels just right.

Criticisms

The biggest issue is probably the lack of control over what shapes you'll get. Sometimes the deck serves up exactly what you need, other times it feels like the game is actively working against your plans. This randomness can be frustrating when you've set up a perfect spot for a specific terrain type that never appears.

While the ambush cards add interaction, they can feel a bit arbitrary in smaller player counts. With just two players, getting hit with multiple ambushes can swing the game pretty dramatically through no fault of your own. The timing of when these cards appear matters a lot, and that's completely out of your control.

Some players find the spatial puzzle aspect more stressful than fun, especially when trying to optimize every single placement. Analysis paralysis can creep in despite the simple rules, and the simultaneous play means you might feel rushed to make decisions you'd prefer to think through more carefully.

Conclusion

Cartographers hits a sweet spot that's surprisingly hard to find. It's approachable enough for families but rewards careful planning and spatial thinking. If you enjoy puzzle games, appreciate clever scoring systems, or just like the satisfying feeling of filling in a map, this one's worth your attention.

The game really sings with players who don't mind a bit of randomness in service of a smooth, engaging experience. It's perfect for groups that want something more substantial than a party game but don't want to commit to a heavy strategy session. Plus, that excellent solo mode means it'll hit the table even when your gaming group can't gather.

Just know what you're getting into: this is a game where the cards dictate your options, and sometimes those options won't align with your grand plans. If you can embrace that chaos and focus on making the best of whatever the deck throws at you, Cartographers will reward you with some genuinely satisfying gaming sessions.