Confusing Lands review – Portable, and not so confusing, fun

I corrupted my wife into modern board gaming quickly while we were dating. In her family, she grew up letting other people win so people would play with her and now a maniacal grin crosses her face when she realizes she makes a tactical and well planned move, regardless of the havoc she creates along the way. Nowadays, we keep different games in the car for when we’re grabbing a coffee or a beer at a local establishment. With Confusing Lands, we have added a new quick hitting tactical game to the collection.

Confusing Lands comes to us from publisher Envy Born Games and artist/designer Zak Eidsvood. In Confusing Lands, two players will create a unique floating island trying to meet individual scoring objectives and one common public objective.

Game Overview

Cards in the game are two-sided and come with a variety of printed symbols and scoring objectives laid out in a 2×6, or 6×2, grid depending on how you want to look at it. As players add cards to their islands, they must cover at least one square of their island with their new card, rotating or flipping their card to the desired direction. Once placed, cards cannot be moved and they can never cover one of the two block scoring conditions present on the island.

Players can add any number of the 18 personal scoring objectives to their island and each has a unique way to score points at the end of the game. Players may score four points for each space in their longest “Mighty River” or six points for each wolf/elk pair present in the “The Circle of Life” objective. The downside of adding a scoring objective is that each one gives players an automatic -10 points at the end of the game, so players must make sure to maximize their placement to net positive final points.

A game takes place over four rounds beginning with the players shuffling the deck of 18 cards and placing a public scoring objective on the table. A round starts with each player drawing two cards and placing one of the two, either side up, into the island. They will then pass the remaining card to the other player and place that card into their island. The players will draw and play cards through three more rounds with the game ending with only one card left over in the draw pile. Final scoring has each player scoring their personal objectives and taking away the -10 penalty for each. The game provides you with a small score sheet and pencil to jot everything down. Players will also score the public objective, only if they have at least one private objective, before totaling their final score. High score wins!

Solo Variant

The base game also comes with a solo variant with players placing cards into their land and then discarding the unused cards following the same rules as above. Players will compare their final score to a chart in the rulebook with various accolades depending on how you did. While this is my least favorite solo mode variation, it is nice when you want to practice combinations in the game.

Promo Pack #1

We were also provided with promo pack #1, which debuts at PAXU 2024. This promo pack adds six new cards to the deck and increases the game limit to 10 played cards from 8, essentially adding an extra round to the game. The cards in the pack feature double symbol spaces that feature two different symbols vs the base game with one symbol per square. The objectives on these cards rely on what your opponent builds in their lands. For example a player might score two points per square with forest when using the “Wildfire” or per village space with “Overpopulation.” The pack also comes with three player aide cards for reference and rules.

Overall Thoughts

Confusing Lands packs a fun and engaging game into a small package. Once you learn the rules, gameplay only takes 5-10 minutes and playing a few games is a great way to pass the time. The artwork is inviting and playful with curious elk, mysterious crystals jutting out of the landscape, and snowcapped mountains dotting the landscape. The rules manual is a small, two sided, piece of paper that is easy to follow and features a breakdown of all 18 scoring objectives in detail with explanations of terms and figures. The manual also details examples of placement dos and dont’s, as well as end game scoring examples. The whole game fits into a box a little larger than 4”x4” which makes it easily thrown into a jacket pocket to take on the go. The promo pack adds a lot of fun decisions that elevated the already stellar gameplay from the base game. Having to pay more attention to what the other players are doing on their island and making sure you don’t contribute to their scoring condition adds some interesting decisions to the gamespace. After playing the game with the promo pack, I’m not sure I could go back to just the base game.

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