Through The Desert by Reiner Knizia

Two camels per turn shouldn’t be enough to create real tension, but Through The Desert keeps proving otherwise. We’re back on Operation Game Night with Travis and Clay, digging into Reiner Knizia’s classic board game of camel caravans, watering holes, oasis points, and ruthless positioning. Clay brings notes from the AllPlay reprint and why the production choice matters less than what’s happening on the board: a clean ruleset that turns every placement into a commitment.

We break down how scoring actually drives behavior, from snatching watering holes to chasing the longest caravan bonuses, and why the enclosure rule is the sneaky engine that can blow a game wide open. Then we get into the part players remember most: interaction. Through The Desert isn’t gentle. You have to “police” the map, read threats, and decide when to abandon your own plan to stop someone else’s land grab.

Player count changes everything, too. At two players the fight can feel tight and zero-sum, but at three the desert becomes a richer tactical puzzle where you can pivot, pressure, and sometimes let opponents collide while you quietly bank points. We also talk mind games you don’t see in the rulebook, plus a key design twist: the ending can be accelerated when a camel color runs out, making tempo a weapon you can manipulate.

If you love classic board games, area control, route building, and sharp Reiner Knizia strategy, this conversation will put Through The Desert back on your table. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who misses the old-school greats, and leave a review with your favorite “I got blocked” story.

Transcript

Desert Banter And Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, back and better

Editions And Production Choices

SPEAKER_00 0:19

than ever. Is it a mirage? Or can I see that I'm joined by Clayton Gable? Hi, Clay. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I'm a little parched, Travis. I've been out here in the desert. You've been out here in the desert? Yeah. Just making caravans of camels.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

That's right. We're talking through the desert, the Reiner Kennyzia classic today. Uh, which version did you play, Clay, that you would like to debrief?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

The one. Oh, oh. It's right there above my head. It's the all-play version. I don't know when this came out, a couple years ago. But reprint. It fits in a all-play size box. So if you're familiar with their larger box line, which is still a pretty small box for a board game, they get a lot in that Through the Desert box from All Play. So that thing's busting at the seams up there. That's a note on production. I prefer that they got it all in there versus having a big box that was somewhat empty. But yeah, through the desert. It's been around for a while. When was the first time this came out, Travis?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

It said like 1994, 1998, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Let me see. 1998.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, let's give the people the real data. 1993. This is Kenizia Heyday, right here.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

So I was way off.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

And we got these pastel, is that the word? Pastel colored camels just being carelessly thrown about the desert trying to collect points from cozying up next to palm trees, which has a name in the game. I think it's an oasis. Yeah. And then watering holes, which are other objectives across the board. Yeah, there's been a lot of versions of this. We uh Travis is perusing the BGG fantasy flight. Wow. Yeah. And all of them, all of them look cool. Like I'll be honest. I I dig these, and I think the all-play one, they're like little plastic camels that you're putting out. But the um, I think one of them has some like almost like clay, like ones with a little heft to them. Cool. Camels. And I would like to hunt that version down because I think that'd be nice

Core Rules And Scoring Basics

SPEAKER_01 2:29

to play with. Board game geeks geeks coming in here calling this a 2.16. Well, I'll tell you that complexity is all in the depth because this game is just about as simple as it can get to teach. On your turn, you place two camels, and each player has a leader of every different color camel. So I have my leader of the black camels. There's no black camels, my leader of the purple camels, my leader of the red camels, and on my turn, I can place out two red camels that extend my caravan, or a purple and a red, or a yellow. You get the point. That's all you're doing on your turn. And like I mentioned a little bit earlier, some of the things you're trying to do are to collect these point tiles that are watering holes, and then when you get close enough to an oasis, as in next to an oasis, you get a five-point token. And that at it, that those are the rules right there. Yeah, that's pretty much it. There is another thing you can try and do where you can, if your caravan like starts at one edge of the map and creates like an enclosure.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

So you take one caravan and enclose an amount of space with no other camels in there. Um, you can claim all the watering holes within that space. So you didn't have to like go visit each one. You can just claim them all, those points are yours, and you get a point for every hex that's enclosed in that space at the end of the game. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Sneaky way to run away with it.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Sneaky, sneaky way to run away with it. And a lot of this and a lot of the complaints about this game come down to that initial positioning.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Right. So at the beginning of this game, you all you have five leaders and you just take turns placing them out on the board. And I have not played this game enough. I've played this game, you know, six or seven times now, mostly at two players. I did just play it at three. But I have not played

Openings, Enclosures, And Board Control

SPEAKER_01 4:42

it enough to really see how that initial positioning can be that detrimental. But I could see if you like stuck yourself in a corner, put all your leaders on just one side of the map, like you might be at a disadvantage. But to me, it's like, man, if there's some high-value watering holes, I'm gonna try and put my leaders out there. I want to kind of be evenly spaced about because you don't want somebody. This is a mean game, too. You oh yeah, you don't want somebody over there just enclosing a massive area unchecked. So you gotta kind of have a presence everywhere where you can police the board a little bit, make sure people aren't getting wild. But yeah, I mean, the more I play this, the more I am enjoying it and seeing it for its elegance. I we've been big Blue Lagoon fans here. Oh yeah. And I would have said up until this week, when I played Through the Desert twice again, I would have said I liked Blue Lagoon better and I thought it was a better game. But I don't know, this week's got me thinking the the simplicity of Through the Desert just really shines. And when I played it with three players and just those interactions that arose between the competing priorities of man, do I want to keep working on my caravan down here? No one's really paying attention. I might get this enclosure. But also, I see that Mary is got her yellow caravans trying to get away with something over there. So, do I go police that area? But maybe I'll just go grab a quick watering hole point over here with my purple caravan. So, just so many things to think about on every turn. But yeah, you had something, Travis.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, I I found it interesting that when we talked with Rainer Kenizia, and if you have not listened to that episode, please go back and listen to it. It was fascinating to hear the man himself speak about some of his own designs, but he kept coming back to through the desert. Like that was a recommendation for all ages, for all situations. Like he mentioned this one a whole lot, and it was interesting to hear like how he would recommend this one over something like Blue Lagoon or one of his many other designs that we thought would have fit some of the situations that we gave him a little better. Uh, I think he's very proud of this one, and we're not certainly not the first to ever talk about this game. It's like 30 some years old, it's been reprinted a thousand times, but there's something about the simplicity of it and the depth with which you can go in your strategy that really make this one shine. Like the high-level players of Through the Desert are going to win more times than not, and it's like analyzing the space like a chessboard, right? Like you see the space, you plan the routes ahead of time, you have alternate contingencies, and then you go and you execute, and hopefully nobody like screws that up with a zig where they should have zagged. I I think this game is great. Um, I think it's just simple enough where you can play with anyone. And I I don't know, man. I I can't say enough good things about this game. I I think it's great. I I don't know if it's my I don't know if I would pick this one over Blue Lagoon, though. Tell me why you're leaning towards this now.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Just the the the simplicity alone. I mean, Blue Lagoon, you kind of have to explain the all right, I'm collecting goods. Oh my gosh, hey, we gotta reset the board halfway through, and then we're gonna do this again, and this time you can go from here. I mean, it's not a ton of rules in Blue Lagoon by any means, and you're doing some of the similar things where you can cut people off, but it just feels so much more pointed and through the desert. It like just cuts down to the essence of what it is, and I I appreciate that that that simplicity. And I didn't know that I would, but maybe it's because I was just playing at two players, and two players is maybe probably not the ideal player count for this. I it says best at three, yes, well, and I played it at three, and that's when I started really really popping off the bat because I had played it many times at two and then once at three, and once I played it at three, I was like, Okay, okay, I see, I see. Because at two players, it is very what's the it's like zero sum, you know. Yeah, you you you're either gaining something or they're gaining something or losing something, yeah, with every move. So um with three players, it just added that extra little wrinkle that I needed.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, you're not dealing with like a bipolar desert where like you're just going tit for tat, exchanging OACs, exchanging watering holes, exchanging those points one for one. You can actually like jockey and potentially play off another player strategy to help set yourself up for the future. Yeah, yeah. What like you got any like hot takes about this one? Like, this has been talked

Don’t Forget This Classic

SPEAKER_00 9:45

about a thousand times. This has been compared to a million a million other games. It's like on everybody's ranking of Renan Kranisio's games. Like, what's Clay's hot take about Through the Desert?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Jeez, I don't know if I have a hot take other than I mean the board gaming industry moves so fast, and there's so many new things coming out all the time. Yeah, like this had a moment, this had a moment just recently when AllPlay reprinted it a couple years ago, but I think it's long since forgotten again, uh, at least amongst modern gamers, people that got into the hobby recently. Sure. And I would just say don't forget about it. Like this is a good game, and you know, they keep coming out with games with cool themes and you know, more

Anniversary Night Cutoff Story

SPEAKER_01 10:32

interesting mechanisms layered on, but at the end of the day, that player interaction of just people putting camels out onto a desert and trying to get one up on somebody, it it works. And if your group can handle that type of my group can't really handle it. Mary was pretty mad. We this was our anniversary night game. Oh, and yes, it was I cut her off, she was dead set. I mean, she was getting greedy. I could see she had her yellow caravan just trying to gobble up this huge swath of land, yeah. And so I just meandered my little purple caravan over in there and made it impossible for her to do that. And this this set her off. This was this was like the ultimate betrayal. Wow. So yeah, it definitely has those moments, but I like that. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

If you're gonna get lucky on anniversary night and you get to play a game, you might as well let her win. I know, I know. Let me ask you this. I we're we're derailing here for a moment. Is is Mary one that like obviously she wants to win. Uh she plays the games with you, not to sit there and lose or to like satiate your hunger to play games. So let's say she she discovers that you're letting her win. Like, what what's Mary's reaction?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

She would like it.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Really?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

She would like it. No, she she likes to win. Yeah. And she often gets upset when she doesn't win. Okay. And I won't let her win because I don't think that's fun. I shouldn't do it. But I know, and selfishly, I should, because if she wins a game, she likes it. It doesn't matter what it is. But if I win the first time, she's like, I like that game. So so if I was a smart man, I would, you know, maybe take some sub off. But I the problem is I only ever beat her the first time we play because she's smarter than me, and I know the rules. So I have a leg up in the first play, usually. Okay. But after that, it's usually downhill for me. But on anniversary night, I was popping off. I saw I saw her greed, and I cut it at its core.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Oh man, her ambitions dried up like an oasis in the desert.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yes, I will say I have no idea. Again, mainly a two-player game of this. That's what I've been playing. Yeah. But at three, it was like, whoa, that's a lot of information out there. There's through 15 different camel caravans, yeah, sprawling across this map, you know, because each person had five, and there's three of us. And this says, I think it plays up to five, which to me, I think that would be preposterous. But I would be, I'd try it. I mean, I'd try it, but I definitely think I can see three being the sweet spot for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, definitely. Is there any sort of rule in this game where you have to face your camels like towards

Head Games, Tempo, And End Trigger

SPEAKER_00 13:49

where the line is going? Because I always think about that like in games like this where something has a kind of direction to it, the pieces, the I don't know, whatever you're like, the chits on the board are all kind of facing the same direction. And I always wonder, like, if I put them oriented a different direction to potentially throw off any uh suspicions of where I'm going, because like everybody lines their camels up, it looks good when they're all in a row, but is there a rule that says that you have to do that?

SPEAKER_01 14:19

There's no rule, and as a type B personality, I don't do that. Okay, my camels are you know, their their caravan is a little disjointed, squared away. Yeah, yeah. Mary, she's got hers all pointing in the same line. Maybe that's plus five bonus points at the end of the game for all your camels going in the same direction. You also do get 10 points at the end of the game if you have the longest caravan in each color. So anyway, not that that matters.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I think about that a lot when it comes to like hidden movement games, too. Like we played like that uh mind management, like hunting the killer game that one time with the hidden movement, and you have to place the little footprints out on the out on the map in the squares where you where you in places where you had been. And I always think about that like if I put the f the footprints facing the other way, but the trail kind of leads, you know, where I'm going instead of where I've been, then maybe I can throw them off their descent. And I there's really no rule behind it, but I just that would throw me off if I saw footprints or camels leading a certain direction, but then they zigzagged and went somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

It's all head games, man. It's all head games, it's all freaking head games. And the other thing I really appreciated about Through the Desert this week was the fact that the game end can be triggered by a player. Yeah, you know, it's not just everybody places all their stuff. When one of the color camels runs out, it's over. Yeah. So, you know, uh, if you're really building that red caravan, which is what was happening in our game, it was like stressing me out because I'm like, no, please stop pulling red camels. I wanted to pull reds, but I was like, no, I don't want the thing to be over yet. So I like that kind of player-determined end that you can you can manipulate that and like speed it up and slow it down depending on you know where you sit in terms of you know positioning on the board, if you're doing well, if you're not. So, yes, I that disjointed, we were kind of wrapping up and I just threw in some more things that I I thought of here at the last minute that I like.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

I think I like that. I that's that might be a good take for this game. Like there's a temporal aspect to it where like people can stretch and condense the timelines with which you're competing, and it has to change your strategy because if you have three camels out there and somebody's like nearing the end of their caravan or like pushing one color caravan as hard as they can, you know that that time is extremely limited, and they could hit the brakes at the last minute to delay and maybe sneak out a couple more points elsewhere, but like you can see the end coming, and there's not a lot of games that do that, yeah. Like you maybe it's like you know, hidden cards in a hand that like people are playing, and you don't know when that next one's coming, but they do, and like with something like Through the Desert, you can see the end coming, and it's really hard to like keep pace with the person that's in the lead. You can see all the points clearly on the board, like there's no hidden thing that's gonna be a surprise at the end, it's all right there, and it's how how you can best analyze the information that's given to you on the board to make the best decision at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, no, no, that's that's good, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

I don't know about you, but I'm uh getting a bit parched. It's uh it's been hot out here

Final Thoughts And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 17:55

in the desert.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Did we do it? Let's pack it. Let's pack it up. Let's pack it up. Let's load up the caravan. Uh this has been Operation Game Night. I have been Travis, he has been Clay. This has been Renner Canadias through the desert, and we are out.