Darwin's Journey: Fireland Expansion - New Adventures Await! Strategy Game of Exploration and Discovery for Kids and Adults, Ages 14+, 1-4 Players, 30-120 Min Playtime, Made by Thundergryph Games

A great expansion for a great game!

Perfect complement.

The art style and components match the base game, but unfortunately the play style departs from the tight strategic foundation quite a bit.The major addition of the game (time as a resource to be spent on adventures) leads to more player interaction, but the integration of the adventures in particular leaves a lot to be desired. The adventure tokens replace score points when going across map segments. Instead, when crossing a boundary, an adventure card is drawn and the player picks one of two options, one of which usually results in them obtaining the token.The randomness is a large departure from the base game, and the abstract nature of the cards takes away from the feel of actually having adventures. The reference in the instructions suggests that some additional text on the cards might have helped with this.Even when home-ruling that adventure cards are visible instead of drawn (which I strongly suggest), it only helps somewhat. The addition of another impactful dimension for VP means that overall, players get even less done with the expansion, reducing the feeling of accomplishment.The map is quite a bit busier than the originals, which can make it difficult to find tokens and meeples. It's also confusing why new explorers and ships are introduced for short tracks on the new map, overall the concept feels forced and poorly executed.It's a bit of a shame, I'd have happily embraced an expansion with a few more goals/cards and a new map.