Funko Games Indiana Jones Sands of Adventure Board Game | Ages 8+ | 2-4 Players | 45 Minutes Playing Time | Strategy, Adventure, and Cooperative Gameplay | Family Games for Teens and Adults

Product Information

In Indiana Jones Cryptic, players are working together to solve the puzzles based on the famed Indiana Jones movies. Countering the negative on replay value, nothing gets destroyed during play so this is a game you can replay with other friends or pass on when you’re done. Because in Indiana Jones Sands of Adventure, we are taking on well-loved characters from the brilliant adventure franchise to work together and rescue the Ark of the Covenant before it falls into the wrong hands! The names of the movies themselves are not included in the game, though there are some suspiciously similar titles written on the three envelopes. These might be assembling a few components or deciphering symbols to build a word or find a word that acts as a code to look up in the back of the book.

On their turn during the gather phase, players move to any location on a track of five: see above; once they take the action there, they have to roll a dice to see the “consequences”.The presentation and artwork is extremely impressive, and does a great service to the source material. For one of these, I had to reset the components between each step of the puzzle which was a mild nuisance. Meanwhile for one of the pathways it was unclear if the template had to be used the whole time or if it was only used to solve a secondary objective. Suitable for ages 8 and up, 2-4 players, it offers 45 minutes of adventurous gameplay perfect for teens, adults, and family game nights. There was another puzzle where I really felt like the narrative made the puzzle harder to solve as it established that something we had was incorrect but that was a piece of the solution where you had to separate true and false information.

Every image feels lovingly crafted, from Marion’s rakish grin to Marcus’ flamboyant jab with a fountain pen. I guess it would have been nice to have a round reminder on the back of the rulebook to keep things right and avoid having to revisit the entire rulebook. The game felt you were in a movie:the gather phase feeling you were gathering information and resources, but knowing that a big battle was coming … you just didn’t know when! There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

While we were waiting, we played through Bogeyman: a cooperative kind of horror game by Antoine Ferrara (we’ll take a look at this in the future). Also, there is a very familiar silhouette of the main character on the box, but you will not find the image of the actor anywhere in the box or on the cover. Sands of Adventure is a little bit gimmicky and you’ll notice this as soon as you open the box and take out the rather impressive sand timer that looks like its been taken from the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. If, at the end of your turn, you happen to draw a snake card, the gameplay halts until you roll a torch icon on the die.

Communication is important and it make work for some groups to designate a leader to facilitate the Timed Phase.Some of these pathways will have Action Tools that can be used with them, where you can draw around or alongside different shapes to form your path. So when the chance to review a game that has gamers solving puzzles through the movies came up, I jumped at the opportunity acting like a second grader saying “ooh ooh pick me! Or perhaps a dogfight with a Messerschmitt becomes a crash landing when someone accidentally shoots out the tail of the biplane. One thing I’ve always wondered is firstly why the eminent archaeologist had never been committed to cardboard before that I can remember, and secondly, how the devil do you even begin to do it without causing the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth from the well established fan base. To much maligned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I still watched with much enjoyment regardless of the aliens.

Based on the description, it sounds like a Rummy-esque game, as you’ll be playing cards in sets and runs to win. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. And based on this experience, even with some of my little quibbles, I’d happily pick up other games in this line (which is Star Trek Cryptic at the time of writing this).Join Elite Reward today and earn up to 10% points back with Elite Reward - Our exclusive membership service from GAME.