Howling Winds and Huskies in Expedition: Northwest Passage
Plot a course through the unpredictable Arctic Ocean where ice and water form paths in Expedition: Northwest Passage.
Time for another favorite! Expedition: Northwest Passage was a solo game I picked up years ago, and promptly went on a journey to create a complete map. This isn’t at all what the game was meant for, but I’ve always appreciated how adaptable it is! Plus, the combination of tile-laying and exploration are simply some of my favorites. Back to the sea!
Game Overview
Game Name: Expedition: Northwest Passage
Publication Year: 2010
Designer: Yves Tourigny
Artist: Stéphane Poinsot and Yves Tourigny
Publisher: Matagot
Solo Mode: Official Solo Variant
From Greenland, a small crew sets sail to explore the elusive course to the Northwest Passage. Seasons change as water freezes and thaws, while points of interest can be seen. With both a ship and sled, the race to make it back home before another winter is always a challenge!
First Play
January 26, 2018
Complexity
3
Latest Play
December 21, 2024
Expansions
0
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
62
Play Time
25 Minutes
High Score
17
Game Area
26" x 24"
Low Score
-38
Just Enough Crew
Although I consider this to be a pretty relaxing sort of game, it certainly has some tension. There are 7 crew to use for different actions, and this has always felt perfect.
What does that mean? I never have enough crew to do everything I want to do during a round, but the limitations feel natural. There are still plenty of things to accomplish!
Splitting the crew between the ship and sled is also never easy to do: I’ve tried all sorts of different strategies.
These meeples might not look like much, but I always use this same set. They’re like old friends: Familiar and cozy!
Simulated Seasons
I’ve mentioned it a few times, yet I often enjoy natural elements like seasons or weather in exploration games.
Here, the solar disc acts as a round tracker and indicates which part of the map is frozen. In other words, water in the blue area is solid and passable with the sled.
However, frozen water can trap the ship! So it’s important to plot different paths depending on the season and whether the crew is aboard the ship or sled.
This is such a simple way to follow the seasons, and it adds another challenge to keep moving forward.
An Alternate Sled Crew
It had to happen! I picked up the most adorable Husky family in the Calico Critters world earlier this year. Just needed to find the perfect solo game pairing… Done!
These little ones were all bundled up in their own sled. Everyone was prepared for a fantastic journey on the ice!
Actually, this brings up an interesting idea of how to split the crew. I’ve tried using a balanced ratio of 3 or 4 crew across both, to focusing on just the ship or sled.
Nothing is a surefire strategy since the tiles are random. Always keeps me guessing, and the sled crew howling!
Trapped by an Inlet
My map skills were still there! I did it again… All complete! This was pretty difficult, though, but I can’t express how fun it is to fill in every space with a single or double tile.
Granted, one of my biggest complaints is the small number of single tiles. Those compass points are wilds, but I would have loved to see a proper map!
Alas, there was no way the crew would make it back to Greenland, and I left them with no way back east.
It still gets to me when I sacrifice my crew for these maps! Maybe they had a favorable southwest wind, though…
Mastering a Solo Game: Is There a Problem?
By some standards, I would agree that I seem to have mastered gameplay with the way I complete the map. It doesn’t happen every play, yet there was a time that I spent a year trying to make it happen! So, why do I keep playing? I think there are some solo games that are either completed or mastered, and that brings a close to the experience.
Yet in this case, I haven’t tired of gameplay because I don’t have a single winning strategy. There are some things I do most plays, like unloading the sled crew right away and sailing south, but nothing is ever identical. I split the crew up differently, or even try to keep everyone aboard the ship a little bit longer. And the return journey? Always different!
I may have mastered some of the concepts, yet I think the main thing to never lose sight of is the fun factor. If I master a game and can win every time, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Maybe I need an easy win in the middle of losing a lot of complex games, or simply to brighten my day. Perhaps the artwork or game setting is something I love, too!
There are many reasons to move on from a solo game. But mastering the strategies isn’t a bad thing. I generally prefer to have a low winning percentage to gauge how challenging a game is. But that’s not the only thing that ties into fun and enjoyment. On some days, I just want to return to something familiar that offers me some smiles and laughs!
Fun in the Snow
More Calico Critters fun! This still isn’t even the entire family… Only about half of them. But everyone was out and about to have all the fun in the world with the sleds!
Look closely, and you’ll see that they have slightly different fur colors and patterns. So adorable!
With my actual crew lost to the cold, I didn’t want to end things on a sour note. So after the Huskies were done sledding or skiing on sleds, I reset to play again.
It might seem like I’ve solved the game with my complete maps, but every play still feels different and challenging.
A Surprising Strategy
Just as expected, this play was entirely different! I made it a point to try to bring the crew home safely. But what I didn’t expect was how I went about working towards that.
The sled wasn’t deployed until several rotations of the solar disc. Rather than race south, I meandered a little bit to fill in the map towards the middle. Plenty of water!
We found the Northwest Passage, then started to head back to Greenland. It looked like it was going to be close!
And again, those wild compass points ruined the aesthetic, yet only the northwest was unexplored.
Session Overview
Play Number: 53 and 54
Solo Mode: Official Solo Variant
Outcome: 8 and 17 (1 Win and 1 Loss)
Success! With some careful planning, the crew made it back to Greenland with the final action point. I tied my high score and celebrated the survival of everyone! That felt great, especially with a map that didn’t have too many empty spaces. Keeping the middle area open with some waterways has proven to be quite useful… Although I’ve also had success moving the ship all around from the south to the north. Never the same pattern with this game!
%
60 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
10
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
10
Quality
Components & Rules
10
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
8
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
9
+ Pros (Positives)
- Each play offers slightly different challenges with the way the tiles create unpredictable paths through the ice.
- Splitting the crew between the ship and sled offers some unique strategies, but there isn’t a single path to victory.
- There are many ways to customize the experience and create goals that go outside of achieving a high score.
- Frozen water changes with the position of the solar disc, creating ongoing challenges that require planning.
- Play time moves quickly and doesn’t drag on, especially since downtime between rounds is only a few seconds.
- Surviving the journey and bringing the entire crew back to Greenland feels like a satisfying achievement.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Raised edges on the board would have been nice to keep the tiles from getting dislodged, which happens a lot.
- There are too few single tiles included so that the wild compass point side must be used with the main tiles.
- Tokens can be much easier to mark as collected, rather than placing them on the tiles to pick them up later on.
- Although it’s part of the appeal, bad luck with the tiles can lead to some unfortunate blocked paths for the crew.
Victory Conditions
Find the Passage and Return
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Complete the map in at least 1 game.
Use only the ship to explore and win in at least 1 game.
Continue the Conversation
What do you like about Expedition: Northwest Passage? Are there any other exploration-based solo games you enjoy? There’s always been something about this one that draws me in. It’s simple on the surface, yet making sure the crew survives is quite the challenge! All of the ice and water make for an intriguing atmosphere, and I love completing maps!
Yet another game I grabbed from your SGOYT posts of some time back. This has been in my Top 10 for the last 3 years and I absolutely love it. I generally play it two handed which gets a lot of terrain out and gives me two ways of playing the same map. I generally have one player use the sled aggressively to pick up bonuses while the other player hightails it south as fast as possible to try and find the Northwest Passage quickly and return for those bonuses. Then it comes down to how well the non-focused crew go that determines who wins. Yes you may be the breaker of wallets in this collection too but you haven’t steered me wrong yet.
The other exploration game I love is Conquest of Paradise. You draw out islands or sea tiles from a bag like E:NP which is very cool. It’s not 100% exploration with some straightforward “combat” involved, which isn’t a major part of the game if you don’t want it to be, but is another fascinating historical period. Fantastic notes with a whole booklet on the history of the time giving you a real immersion into the distant past. It’s really good.
As an aside I’ve finally sourced a copy of Set Rotation so Millennium Blades can finally be played as a proper solo game – another I grabbed from your posts. Very much looking forward to it arriving.
So awesome to hear! That’s an interesting way to play with the different crews. I love how you can customize so much about the experience and play it how you like. Lots to love, and I’m glad my recommendation was a good one!
Ooo, I had never heard of that one in terms of an exploration game. Seems like I may need to take a closer look to see what it’s about. I’m trying very hard not to add more games right now with my avalanche of unplayed plays, yet this one sounds pretty interesting. Thanks for pointing it out!
And lastly, hope you enjoy all the fun of collecting cards and building a deck! It’s falling off my list of favorites at the moment, but not because I dislike it: Just so much competition for those top spots! I want to get back to playing with all the card packs, too. It’s very chaotic, yet a lot of fun when the right combinations happen. Good luck!