Every year I am on the lookout for a new game that I ask Santa to pick up for my family and me. My hope is that we’ll get the new game and play it over Christmas break. Back in August, I stumbled upon an article on Arstechnica that Aaron Zimmerman wrote about the hottest new board games from Gen Con 2019.
I scrolled through the list and came across PARKS by Keymaster Games that is a beautiful looking board game for 1-5 players aged 10+. Playtime is 30-60 minutes.
Parks comes with well-crafted pieces and strikingly-beautiful art. View a hi-res version of the full board game.
The artwork alone is not only masterful but mesmerizing. Each National Park card has artwork from the amazing fifty-nine park series.
But what I like the most about the game is that not only does it have a fun (and exciting) gameplay that a family can enjoy, but there is an element of discovery in playing the game.
My kids loved going through the National Park cards as we played the game. We not only learned about National Parks in different states that we didn’t previously know about, but we came together as a family to have fun. It’s not often that you can get your kids away from video games and sit down with you to play a board game.
Keymaster Games delivers on the packaging, quality of the game pieces, as well as the gameplay.
The PARKS board game box comes with molded slots to easily store all the game pieces. Makes breakdown and storing the game away a breeze (and the side of the box even has a diagram to show you where all the pieces/cards go inside the box).
With amazing artwork and well-crafted game pieces, I worried that the game itself might not be good, but thankfully that’s not the case. PARKS is not only fun, but it’s a deceptively strategic game. The premise of the game is simple: each player has two hikers who have four seasons to travel to as many National Parks as they can. Along the way, players collect resources (water, mountain, tree, sun, wildlife [that acts as a wildcard resource]) that can be used as payment to visit the National Parks.
Hikers start on a trail and move through the other parts of the trail to collect resources that are used to visit the National Parks or buy gear. The strategic part comes in as you need to plan what resources you need to visit the parks.
Players can interact by using their campfire and staying on the same trail path as another player. At the end of a trail, players reserve a spot at the next National Park or pay resources to visit a park. Then the trail is removed from the board, an additional part of the trail is added for the next season, a new randomized trail is put on the board, and players start over again.
At the end of the fourth season, players count up their points, and the player with the most wins.
For a more thorough walkthrough of the game, be sure to check out Keymaster Games’ YouTube video with a friendly raccoon. (Just watching the video for the friendly raccoon will make you and your kids laugh.)
Two neat features added to the game are the camera and the points that you can earn by taking a picture with the camera. When you are on the vista board piece, you can pay two resources to take a picture. You’ll receive a tiny token that has the number one written on one side and a small picture on the other. My kids loved matching the small picture up with its National Park card. For them, it was almost a game within a game.
And secondly, the metal first hiker marker is an actual enamel piece that a player puts by them for being the first person to reserve a park each season. To start the game, the player who last went on a hike tells their story, holds the pin, and gets to go first. Hearing my kids tell their stories about past walks or hikes made me smile.
Close up photo of the well-crafted containers to hold (with a lid) all the board pieces.
My family has played a bunch of games over the years, and this is the first one that my kids asked that we play again. Educational, strategic in gameplay, and well-thought-out game mechanics makes PARKS a winner in my household.
I can’t recommend this game enough. Pick it up, play the game, and be sure to take the time to read through the park cards that explain what state the National Park is located along with some interesting facts.
We’re using the opportunity to then plan what park we would like to visit on a future vacation.
Hope you have fun!
2021 PARKS: Nightfall Expansion Update
Santa Claus brought us the new PARKS: Nightfall Expansion and my family and I love it. Campgrounds are added to the game that adds a whole extra level of strategy to the page. Adding the new expansion to the base PARKS game. You will need the original game to play the Nightfall expansion, but it’s well worth the investment. If you’re not certain whether you’d like to get the expansion, check out the “How to Play PARKS Nightfall” video below. If you have PARKS, I highly recommend picking up the expansion. My family is a year out from first owning the game and we still love playing it. It’s calming and isn’t a cutthroat game so it’s great for family play. I can’t recommend the PARKS base game and expansion enough!
View of the PARKS expansion board. Notice the yellow campgrounds on the trail on the bottom of the photo.
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