Big Sur

^{review by Kaleb}

The Pacific Coast Highway, or California’s Route 1, is one of the most scenic highway routes in the country. With views of the Pacific Ocean, high cliffs, and winding roads, it is a memorable experience for any traveller on this road. In Big Sur, the players are traveling along the Pacific Coast Highway visiting landmarks and checking out the surrounding scenery.

Big Sur is a card-drafting game, with each card either representing different areas of scenery or being resources to cash in during the game. You can either use the resources on your drafted card as resources to build new road sections, or use the card as the road section itself. You score more points based on connecting terrain types (such as farmland or ocean views), but you can also add landmarks to parts of your connected highway to add on unique scoring conditions. The landmarks in the game are based on actual scenic lookouts on Route 1!

Big Sur has a fun table presence, and while it is a light game in complexity, it can seem a tad on the heavier end for small box card games. It may not be the game you center your board game night around, but you can easily spend time playing Big Sur over and over, taking in all of the views you can find in the game! Big Sur could also serve as an introductory game for card-drafting. It’s simple enough in nature to be exciting for newer players, but still remains enticing for more intermediate board gamers.

This game is a great choice for fans of road trips and travel, California views, and games with drafting cards as the mechanic for play. Every time I look at the box, I am reminded of the times I drove on Route 1!

Big Sur is available now from our webstore.