Designer:  Henry Audobon (Kingswood, Parks, Space Park)

Artist:  JP Boneyard, Art Director at Fifty-Nine Parks (Parks)

Publisher:  Keymaster Games (Campy Creatures, Caper, Parks)

Genre/Mechanisms:  environmental, point to point movement, set collection, worker placement

Funding Status:  At the time of this posting, PARKS Expansion: Nightfall + PARKS Memories is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 9.5x the initial funding goal, with just under 7 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count:  1-5

Solo Mode:  yes

Complexity:  medium-light

Risk:  medium-low

What It’s About:  “Parks is a celebration of the US National Parks featuring illustrious art from Fifty-Nine Parks. Players take on the role of two hikers as they trek through different trails across four seasons of the year. While on the trail, these hikers take actions and collect memories of the places they visit. These memories are represented by various resource tokens like mountains and forests. Collecting these memories in sets allows players to trade them in to visit a National Park at the end of each hike.”

The new Nightfall expansion features all new artwork from the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series, including the 17 parks not represented in the base game. It also includes new Year Cards and Bonus Scoring opportunities, and players will experience the trail in a brand new way with the new Camping mechanic.

This Kickstarter campaign also includes 3 new standalone memory-themed games featuring artwork from the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series– Parks Memories: Coast to Coast, Parks Memories: Mountaineers, and Parks Memories: Plains Walker.

How It Works:  Each player has two Hikers (workers) for the duration of the game. On their turn, the active player takes one of their Hikers and advances it as far or as little as they so choose, but they must advance one of their Hikers at least one card down the path. Hikers can not occupy a card that is already occupied by another Hiker (even their own), unless they use an ability to allow for the exception. The player then takes the action on the card where they’ve placed their Hiker. The actions on Basic Trail Sites include taking a Forest token into their supply, taking a Mountain token into their supply, taking 2 Sunshine tokens into their supply, taking 2 Water tokens into their supply, drawing a Canteen card or exchanging any 2 tokens to take a Picture, or in a 4-player game, taking a Sunshine token and a Water token into their supply. Advanced Trail Sites feature actions such as: Exchanging any resource token for a Wildlife token (which functions as a wild resource), exchanging 2 tokens for any other 2 tokens (excluding Wildlife tokens), Reserving or Visiting a Park or Buying a Gear Card, or Spending 1 Water Token to copy the action of a Trail Site currently occupied by another Hiker.

Canteens will allow players to use the card’s special ability when they fill it with Water tokens (but this must be done the same turn they the player acquired the Water tokens). Gear Cards give players various abilities or end-game bonuses. The Campfire tile can be used once per Season, and allows the player to visit a card already occupied by another Hiker. And Park cards can be Reserved for a specific player, but must eventually still be visited (with the player paying out the card’s cost in resource tokens), for it to be considered Visited.

In this manner, Hikers walk the trail path of randomly arranged cards for 4 Seasons, stopping on selected cards for their resources and abilities. When there is only one Hiker/worker left on the trail head, that Hiker must immediately choose the Trail End as their last and final turn of the Season. The Trail End card allows players to Visit a Park, Reserve a Park, or Buy Gear. And if the Hiker gets there soon enough, they may be able to claim bonus Sunshine tokens or even the First Player Marker for the following Season. Then all Canteens are emptied, Hikers return to the Trailhead, 1 additional Advanced Site is shuffled into the Trail Sites before the Sites are reorganized into a new tableau/path, the Gear Cards are refreshed, and a new Season card is revealed.

After 4 Seasons, the game ends and players score points for the Parks they visited, 1 point for each Picture taken, any additional bonuses for Gear Cards, and points for their Personal Bonus if they’ve met its requirements. The player with the most points wins, with ties broken by the player who visited the most total Parks.

Comparisons:  The best game I can think of as a comparison is Antoine Bauza’s Tokaido. Both games are of a light complexity and feature point-to-point movement along a single track. Their primary scoring mechanics focus on the collection of cards and/or various resources, as well as a few different ways to score bonuses, and appear on the surface to be very tranquil games because of their simplicity and elegant designs. Yet they also both feature competitive blocking and “take that” mechanics that can make their gameplay meaner than anticipated depending on their players and their relationship to such mechanics. There’s also a just-launched Kickstarter for a game called Bivouac that looks like it shares a lot of gameplay and design elements with PARKS.

What Should I Pledge?:
$22 Picnic: a copy of the new PARKS: Nightfall expansion, 1 of the 3 new PARKS Memories games, and a KS-Exclusive Mini print.
$44 Day Pack: everything in the Picnic pledge level, plus a KS-Exclusive enamel pin.
$71 Thru Hike: a copy of the PARKS base game, the new PARKS: Nightfall expansion, and a KS-Exclusive Mini print.
$74 Glamping: a copy of the PARKS Memories Boxed Set (all 3 new PARKS Memories games), the KS-Exclusive Box, a KS-Exclusive Mini print, and a KS-Exclusive enamel pin.
$93 Lodge: a copy of the new PARKS: Nightfall expansion, the PARKS Memories Boxed Set, the KS-Exclusive Box, all 3 KS-Exclusive Mini prints, and a KS-Exclusive enamel pin.
$96 Backcountry: everything in the Thru Hike pledge level, plus 1 of the 3 new PARKS Memories games and a KS-Exclusive enamel pin.
$145 Switchback: everything in the Lodge pledge level, plus a copy of the PARKS base game.

Add-Ons:
$49 PARKS base game, 2nd printing
$22 PARKS: Nightfall expansion
$22 PARKS Memories: Coast to Coast
$22 PARKS Memories: Mountaineers
$22 PARKS Memories: Plains Walker
$22 Next Level 6010 Tri-blend T-shirt, sizes S-XXXL
$20 Premium Neoprene Mat for use with Parks base game
$15 Nation Parks Playing Cards, series with brown box
$15 Nation Parks Playing Cards, series with green box

KS Exclusives
The Mini Prints and Enamel Pin are KS-Exclusives. But as far as retail goes, PARKS is a Barnes & Noble-exclusive, and is currently sold out on their online store. Individual brick & mortar locations may or may not have copies remaining, and it seems likely this situation will duplicate itself once the 2nd printing of PARKS, the PARKS: Nightfall expansion, and all 3 PARKS Memories games are eventually released. I’m not one to want to promote FOMO, but this may be your best shot at obtaining copies of any of these games.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re then looking at $145 for the Switchback pledge plus $11 in shipping and state sales tax. Keymaster Games has yet to update their FAQ with the various state sales tax rates, but know that you will be charged $156 plus your state’s sales tax for the Switchback pledge.

PARKS Expansion: Nightfall + PARKS Memories completes its Kickstarter on Friday, February 21st and tentatively ships in September 2020.