Explorers

In Explorers, each player places 4 different landscape tiles into the frame of their individual game board, along with 3 scoring tiles. Landscape tiles show four different terrain types: grasslands, bodies of water, desert, and mountains. On your turn, you reveal a scroll, which indicates the landscapes you are allowed to cross off. The active player crosses off 3 spaces for the terrain type they choose, while other players can cross of 2 of the same type or 3 of the other type shown on the scroll. Players are trying to plan their exploration across their terrain, earning special actions for each checked box with an object in it — you receive points for provisions and gems, and lost temples can be explored with keys. After four rounds of going through all 8 scrolls, the game ends and the player with the highest total score is declared the winner.

What we love about this game: Explorers boils down a "harder" roll and flip like Cartographers into a fun little package with its own twist. It offers easy to understand choices that will also make people think way too hard about which choice to explore.