Time for some fun Camel racing!

Have you ever bet on a camel race?

I doubt that most people readying our game reviews have.

Well, now’s your chance!

Step up to the table in Camel Up and give it a shot!

Of course, there isn’t any real betting going on, but you are guessing which camels are going to be in the lead each leg and win the race in the end.

Just over 3 years ago, I got the chance to play Camel Up at SaltCon. I had heard about the game when it was published in 2014 and it sounded like a fun family board game. So when I had the chance to play it at SaltCon, I jumped at the chance.

And sure enough Camel Up was a lot of fun!

So much fun that I immediately put it on my wish list for our family.

But then I heard a new version of Camel Up was coming out. So I held off for a bit.

Now that wait it over and the new version is fantastic!

I mean what other game do you know of that has a game board like a pop-up book?

That’s right, the new Camel Up game board has a pop-up palm tree as you unfold the board.

How cool is that!

But that’s just the beginning for why the game is so fun…

Camel Up board game — Who knew racing camels could be so fun?

How to play Camel Up

The objective in Camel Up is to earn the most money (points) on the camel race.

Players earn money in many different ways, such as; correctly guessing which camels are going to be in lead positions each leg, by rolling the dice to move camels, by placing their Spectator tiles and having them landed on, by making partnerships, and by guessing the camels that will finish the race in first place and last place.

There are 5 colored camels in the race and two camels (white and black) that are crazy camels going the opposite direction. The camels don’t belong to any particular player. Instead, players each have a set of cards — one for each camel in the race.

On a turn, the active player can choose to take 1 of 5 actions:

Move a Camel
Place a Spectator Tile
Take a Betting Tile
Bet on the Overall Winner or Loser
Enter into a Partnership

1. Move a camel

The player takes a Pyramid token then takes the Pyramid, shakes it, and presses the entrance. As the player does this, a random colored die will pop out of the bottom and roll. The player then moves that colored camel that many spaces ahead on the track (1, 2, or 3 spaces).

If there are any camels stacked on top of the moved camel, they all go together!

The Pyramid is placed back in it’s space and the die is placed in an empty tent next to the Pyramid.

If the grey die is rolled, one of the crazy camels will move instead. If a white number is showing, the white camel will move. If a black number is showing, the black camel will move. Unless, one of the camels has other camels stacked on it. In this case, the one with colored camels will always move.

The catch with the crazy camels is that they move in the opposite direction! They move counter-clockwise.

2. Place a Spectator Tile

The player places their Spectator Tile on an empty space on the race track. There are some restrictions on where it may be place, but the player chooses whether to place it Cheering side up or Booing side up.

If a camel ends its movement on the Tile, the player who placed the Spectator Tile gets 1 coin. And the camel with either continue ahead one space (cheering side) or back one space (booing side).

3. Take a Betting Tile

The player takes the top Betting Tile from any of the colored stacks. By doing so, this means the player believes that camel will finish the leg in the lead locations in the race.

The Tiles show how many coins a player receives depending on where the camel is when the leg ends. The first player to take a Tile in a stack stands to earn more money if that camel is in the lead. And the amount diminishes lower down in the stack.

A Leg ends when the 5th tent is full. (Meaning a 5th camel has moved. Not all camels will move in a leg.)

4. Bet on the Overall Winner or Loser

The player chooses one of their cards and places it face down on either the Winner or Loser locations. If there are already cards in those spaces, the newly placed card goes on top.

At the end of the race, players take each stack and flip it over. Players who added a card to the stack matching the winning camel (and losing camel for that stack) will earn points depending on the order in which they placed their card.

For example, the first player to bet correctly will earn 8 points and the next player will earn 5 points, etc.

5. Enter into a Partnership

The player make take their Partnership card and trade it with another player. That means they take the chosen player’s Partnership card.

At the end of a Leg, players in a Partnership may score points from one of the other player’s Betting Tiles.

For example, let’s say player A and B are in a Partnership and player A has two betting tiles and player B has one betting tile. Player B may choose which of player A’s betting tiles they want to score from. Player A would score points from the only betting tile player B has.

However, if a player must pay a coin because their chosen camel is in 3rd or lower place, the player in a Partnership with them doesn’t need to pay up as well. They simply don’t score extra points.

End of Leg

Players continue taking turns and taking actions until the Leg ends (once the tents are full with dice.) Then Leg scoring takes place.

For scoring, players first see which camel is in the lead. If camels are stacked on the furthest space ahead in the race, the camel on top is in the lead.

Players who have Betting Tiles receive the indicated amount of coins and return their betting Tiles to their places on the board. Players who have a Pyramid token return it to the board and receive 1 coin for each token they turn in. Players take back their placed Spectator tokens and Partnership cards.

Lastly all the dice are placed back in the Pyramid.

Then a new leg begins with the next player in turn order (to the left of the player who last rolled a die).

End of Game

As soon as one camel crosses the finish line, the game immediately ends.

Players first carry out Leg scoring before scoring end game points from the Winning and Losing camels.

One thing I didn’t mention before about the Winning / Losing stacks, is that any player who places a card in the stack that doesn’t match the appropriate Winning / Losing camel must pay 1 coin for their bad choice. If they placed multiple cards in the Winning stack that were incorrect, they pay 1 coin for each bad guess. (The same applies to the Losing stack.)

The player with the most coins after final scoring wins!

Can the whole family enjoy playing Camel Up?

Camel Up has been a hit with everyone we’ve played it with — family, friends, and co-workers.

Who can’t help but love stacking camels, racing them around a board, and guessing which will come in first?

There are many reasons why we love playing Camel Up.

And yes, we’ll admit right up front that the components draw us in every time. When we first opened the game board and the palm tree folded out as a pop-up, we got a kick out of it. The cool thing is that we still do. The only downside to it is that it can block some players’ views of the board. But we quickly get over that.

Then there are the camels themselves. They’re nice and chunky pieces that stack perfectly on top of each other whether facing forward or backward (white and black camels).

And the pyramid dice dispenser rocks too!

The top comes off so you can put the dice in and pressing the entranceway releases one die out the bottom. It’s a fantastic randomizer on which camel will move next.

And that randomness is another thing we love. You can never be quite sure which camel will be in the lead because you how the dice come out and because of how camels carry each other.

Yet you can also hedge your bets and develop some strategies to get ahead. And that comes down to taking chances with probabilities.

But you don’t have to dive deep into figuring that out because it’s a silly-themed game. And just taking your best guess is lots of fun.

We also love that the game turns go quickly because each player can only take one action on their turn and then it’s on to the next player.

Plus, everyone is continuously engaged in the game because what other players do totally affects your choices. There’s no sitting around bored waiting for your turn. If someone chooses to roll the die, it will affect your bets. If someone chooses to take the top betting tile, it means you’ll have to pick something else. Or if someone enters into a partnership with another player, it means you can’t partner with either of them.

Every choice plays off the ones before.

And those choices are varied and fun.

Do you take your chances grabbing the top betting tile of a stack so you can get a higher payout if it’s correct? Or do you want to wait until more camels have moved first? But then that tile stack may be depleted before it gets back to you.

Or do you enter in a partnership with someone who took the tile you wanted earlier?

Or do you place your Spectator tile before the possible spaces fill up and before camels start moving so you can benefit from camels landing on it?

And when is the right time to place a card into the race Winning or Losing spaces?

So many quick and interesting choices.

Yet, the center of the fun for us comes back to the way the camels move, stack, and change possible outcomes every time.

The addition of the white and black crazy camels is new in this 2018 edition of Camel Up. And they’re a fantastic addition!

What’s funny is that in some games they’ve totally made a difference carrying camels the wrong way. And other times they haven’t impacted the game as much. The times they haven’t impacted the game are when the colored camels are all piled up in one space and the black or white camel rolls and goes right past them.

But it’s the ever-present possibility of them messing up the racing order that adds fun tension to the game. It means really anything could happen.

Playing Camel Up also makes me think about other similar games we love like Lemming Mafia and Abandon Ship. They all have funny themes where players influence the movement of the different colored characters and hope for certain ones to finish in certain orders.

Lemming Mafia plays up to 6 players, Abandon Ship up to 7, and Camel Up up to 8. So they’re all great to play with many players.

While we love all 3 games, Camel Up has the largest variety of choices during game play with multiple ways to score points. And the constant shifting of camel order with scoring points at each leg of the game keeps us coming back for more.

Camel Up gets a solid recommendation from us!

How does Camel Up score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Camel Up not only scores high on our “let’s play again” meter at home, but it also scores very high at work as well!

That’s right — Camel Up is a hit at the office for a game to play on lunch breaks. So much so that every Wednesday (hump day) is now Camel Up game day in the break room for lunch!

And because it can play up to 8 players, it’s always drawing the crowd.

If you can’t already tell, we highly recommend Camel Up as a terrific family board game. Grab a copy for your family!