Through the Desert is a German-style board game by Reiner Knizia based on the placement of camels on a hexagon-based board.


Game play
The game begins with the board laid out semi-randomly with water holes and oases. Each player controls five camel trains, one of each of five colours which are the same for all players (the ownership of the camel train is indicated by the placement of a coloured rider on the first camel in each train). On their turn, a player must place two camels, of the same or different colours, to extent their camel trains. Camels may not be placed in opponent's camel trains, and camels of the same colour owned by different players may never be adjacent (but camels of different colours owned by different players may be adjacent).

Players score points by reaching water holes (which removes them from the board, awarding between 1 and 3 points) and oases (which awards 5 points, but the oasis remains on the board). Players may also score points by enclosing areas of the board with their camels. An enclosed area must contain no other camels and be bordered entirely by a single player's camels of a single colour and/or the edge of the board. In this case, the player scores the points for any water holes and oases within the enclosed area, plus 1 additional point for each space within it.

The game ends when all camels of one colour are used up. At the end of the game the player with the most camels of each colour scores 10 points; then, the final scores are totted up and the player with the most points wins.