Cavemen: The Quest for Fire cover
2012BGG rank #7,632

Cavemen: The Quest for Fire

by Dan Cassar · Rio Grande Games

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Players2–5
Time45–60m
ComplexityLight
Age13+

About the game

What is Cavemen: The Quest for Fire?

Cavemen: The Quest for Fire is a card-drafting game in which players take the role of tribal leaders. The tribes compete for opportunities to hunt dinosaurs, recruit tribesmen, and discover new technologies, vying to be the first with enough knowledge and prestige to invent fire and usher in the age of modern humanity! You have two resources to manage: Food and Teeth. You must spend Food each turn in order to keep your Tribe from starving. Teeth indicate prestige among the tribes. Use Teeth to bid for the conch and to acquire Cavemen and Caves. Each turn, cards are drawn from the deck to fill a common Card Pool. Players take actions based on what is available in the pool. For example, if a Beast is drawn into the Card Pool, you can hunt it for Food and claim its Teeth as a sign of your bravery. If you hold the conch during the Action Phase, you benefit by taking your Action first and taking a second Action after everyone else has gone once. Players can bid Teeth to take control of the Conch from another player. This can be important to get the first pick of the cards in the Card Pool. The game features 21 different inventions that allow players to evolve diverse strategies, capitalizing on their tribe's individual strengths. There are challenging decisions every turn as players must evaluate what resources are available, guess what their opponents will do, and weigh the amount of risk they're willing to take.

How it plays

Mechanics

Auction / BiddingOpen Drafting

On the shelf

Categories

Card GamePrehistoric

Questions players ask

Questions to bring to BoardGameBrain

  • How do setup and the first turn work in Cavemen: The Quest for Fire?
  • When does scoring happen and what ends the game?
  • How should the table resolve an unusual timing or rules interaction?