Cartaventura Vinland Review

When you are a fan of adventure games, small boxes, and nordic stories, you might find a game like Vinland Caraventura very enjoyable. I love cooperative story based games, and have been playing them more and more over the past little while (check out our review of Adventures of Robin Hood for another narrative adventure).

There are many Caraventura games available right now, so pick which one you think you might enjoy. Thanks to Kosmos, though, we are looking at the Vinland version!

Long-time board game fans might find it odd that there are NO rulebooks in the box. Everything you do is written on the cards, so there is no need to a rulebook to show you how to play. If you’ve never played a Cartaventura game before, the game walks you through the basics.

If you have, you can skip that portion of the early adventure and get right into the story. Throughout, different cards will provide story updates and different paths for you to choose, and when you do so, a new card from the deck will be drawn and your adventure will continue.

You will have a character you are playing – Leif Erickson in this story – and a bunch of God’s Favour cards to start that can be spent (flipped) during the adventure to do various things.

You’ll layout a bit of the world map – the board you could call it – which will give you a number of different directions you can go, things to do, etc. Because of the choose-your-path nature of the experience, the game does have multiple endings, so your mileage with this game will vary depending on who many times you wish to play through it. This game has 5 possible endings, 4 of which are successful and one is death.

What I love about all Cartaventura games is that they are so easy to play. Everything you need to know is printed on the cards, and it especially directs you which cards to grab next, or which actions you should take.

Whether you play with other people – I personally recommend no more than 2 players total – or decide you want to play alone, there is a lengthy story here. You’d think this was a very short experience when you see the box and the number of cards, but your continual movement around the map, interactions, and more will keep you going for nearly an hour.

I can’t talk to the story that unfolds because it would definitely ruin some of the experience for you, but overall it’s a great story driven game. You can make great decisions for yourself and your clan, and those decisions will ultimately decide your fate.

We played a total of 3 times, winning twice and losing once. I love that nothing ever gets destroyed, so you can always share this game with others so they can experience it as well. And if they do, I can guarantee they will get more Cartaventura games in the future! These are great, small box experiences.