Corps of Discovery: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Deduction, Cooperative, Scenario Based
Player Age: 8+ Player Count: 1 - 4 PlayersTime to Play: 60 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer: Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong LimGame Artist: Matthew RobertsPublisher: Off the Page GamesYear Published: 2025BGG Weight: 3.00Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Player Age: 8+
Game Designer: Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim
Rundown:
Corps of Discovery is based on the Manifest Destiny comic by Image Comics. This comic is filled with pre-settlement exploration and discovery as Lewis and Clark forward the American Frontier. This adventure, however, is filled with unknown monsters.
Corps of Discovery takes this theme and translates it perfectly into a cooperative exploration and deduction game. Players are trying to gain enough resources/water to complete incoming challenges, while ultimately completing the goal of the scenario and surviving to see another day. For example, on the fauna maps players are trying to find forts so they can unlock a way to kill a minotaur. Once three minotaurs are killed in different ways, players will win the scenario.
If the players run out of water, fail too many challenges during the rounds, or are unable to eat food at the end of the round they will lose the scenario. To survive, players will have to deduce where the resources they need are located to gain the correct resources at the right time to lead their exploration.
On a turn, the active player will select one location to reveal. It must be orthogonally connected to a previously explored area and if it is a monster or has a red border, exploration using this pathway stops and needs to be continued from a different previously revealed location.
When revealing locations, players will gain the resource or benefit and the path token will be placed on the left-most challenge card. These path tokens act as a countdown timer to the resolution of the challenge. Before or after revealing a location, there are several free actions a player can do, such as:
- Remove a resource token from the backpack.
- Build a fire or shelter.
- Backtrack.
Each round will be made up of three challenges. Once resolved, for better or for worse, the round will end and the following will occur; one food will be consumed to survive the night, a threat will be revealed if there are no monsters in play, character and gear cards will be unexhausted, and three new challenges are revealed. Once the players win or lose, the game will end.
Alteration:
On paper, this seems like a game with limited scenarios and little replayability, however, in the base box there are two separate packages, one for fauna and one for flora. 
Each package contains 20 scenarios and keeps the same basic resource deduction rules but adds new configurations, resources, and challenges in how to deduce their location. For example in the flora package, the players have to follow a track of certain explorations in order then pick up the greek fire. This then allows players to fight the giant plant by paying the resources on the back of the flora search cards. Any crew tokens the players have at this stage can be used to cover some of the cost, assisting in victory.
Players can lose these crew tokens throughout the game by failing challenges, or not being able to discard a fire token when stumbling into a contaminated resource/flora creature.
The alteration on this game is vast and, if players are interested, there are currently four expansions out that cover different elements of the story. Each contains their scenario package with plenty of unique win conditions and new deduction elements. Each package also contains additional cards in certain decks such as new threats, challenges or destiny cards. There are plenty of ways to increase the replayability with the fauna and flora packages as there are additional small scenario packs that can be printed, as well as a new monthly scenario.
Puzzle:
A map will contain numerous elements, as shown in the tutorial map below.
There are several scenarios contained in each package, however, each scenario has to follow the rules of the package (as shown on these player aids).
These rules will determine that certain resources are either diagonally adjacent, orthogonally adjacent, or in the same row or column. They may even determine that there can only be one of these resources per column or row, as shown with the wood. Players must use these clues to properly deduce what a location is/may be. Not every resource is needed straight away and each challenge card doesn't have to be met at times when it may be more beneficial to take the penalty and use the turns for something more beneficial. So players may know of a resource but leave its location hidden until it is needed. Tokens can be placed on the board as a visual on either the full-colour side or a greyed-out side to represent what is beneath.
Each package will also have specific resources or puzzle elements that add another layer to the play. An example of this is in the fauna package, hills alert the players on how many forts are in the row and column, and in the side panel of the map there is a tetris pattern of resources to display which ones are connected to the fort. Where in flora hills will alert the players how many flora creature are in that row and column.
Intricacies:
The game itself is very easy once learned, however, there are a few intricacies such as challenges, threats, builds, and the backpack.
Challenges:
Each round will consist of three challenges. A challenge will have a timer in the top right corner to keep track via the revealed exploration tokens. 
When exploration tokens are placed here equal to this timer number (shown on the top right of the card), the players must pay the resource/water cost to gain the positive effect on the left-hand side. Otherwise, they can choose not to pay (or be unable to pay) and receive the negative effect on the right-hand side. Some of these challenges will require a settlement or fire to already have been built. This resolved challenge is then removed and the next challenge will slide to the left-most space on the track.
Threats:
Threats are revealed either during the night stage, when a skull is revealed, or through failed challenges. These can have numerous effects that can last several turns and they can also generate monsters.
These monsters may need to be defeated as part of the goal while also bringing their own negative effects. Monsters have a red border which stops movement from continuing using this pathway of revealed locations.
The minotaurs for example will make the players spend one resource or water when exploring in their row or column.
Fire and Settlement:
Both the fires and the settlement can be built as free actions if the players are willing to spend the resources. The settlement will require a field to be discovered during exploration and there can only be one settlement at a time. Having a settlement will prevent players from losing water when fatigue occurs.
The main benefit a fire gives is that it unlocks a free action called backtrack. Backtrack can be used by a player spending two fires. When this is done, their turn will start again. Anything they have done on that turn will be undone, including exhausting cards and exploring a location. As a response to this, the player must explore a new location.
Backpack:
In the backpack, players will store all the resources and water that are needed to survive in the game. The players will start with eight water at the beginning of the game and zero resources. The backpack contains six resource slots, however, the last two of these will trigger fatigue if used. If the players are fatigued when a challenge is resolved they will lose one water or discard resources down to less than five. If a settlement is built, the players can ignore this fatigue effect.
Through some challenges, players can gain sample tokens. These tokens have the depiction of a lock and take up a resource spot. They can only be removed by discarding a resource or water, which in my games, I never have one spare for this cost.
Determination:
- Challenging but rewarding when you win.
- Players shouldn't always focus on the challenges, it is a tricky choice on when to focus on the challenges and when to focus towards the goal of the scenario.
- Great combination of deduction/exploration and cooperation.
- Captures the comic atmosphere perfectly.
- Challenging to set up the exploration board without revealing anything.
Corps of Discovery is getting a Go-To Golden seal. It is innovative in how it combines a tense cooperative experience with an explorative deduction puzzle. Each turn, players are revealing locations in the pursuit of resources, to then meet the overall goal but also to defeat the challenges that the players deem necessary to overcome. There are two largely different packages in the base box with different elements, cards, and goals. Each has a good range of replayability via the 20 scenarios. If you enjoy unique cooperative games with plenty of depth, while still focusing on one-off scenarios, I highly recommend giving Corps of Discovery a go.
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