My fantastic, last-year birthday present continues to give me a lot of fun and joy. I mean of course Clank! series – its starter set and two expansions I received from my friends. I pretty thoroughly wrote about my first impressions regarding the Base Game but also provided details of the Expeditions: Gold and Silk expansion. Today the time has come to present The Mummy’s Curse – as you shall see, so far in my humble opinion the best add-on to the game so far.

The Game

But before going into the detailed description of the expansion, couple of world about the game for those who do not know it or only heard a little. Clank! is a deck-building game. Each player has their own deck, and building yours up is part of playing the game. You start each of your turns with five cards in your hand, and you’ll play them all in any order you choose. Most cards will generate resources (but some will just give you VPs and no possibility to do anything), of which there are three different kinds:

  • Skill, which is used to acquire new cards for your deck.
  • Swords, which are used to fight the monsters that infest the dungeon.
  • Boots, which are used to move around the board.

Each player starts with the same cards in their deck, but they’ll acquire different cards during their turns. Because cards can do many different things, each player’s deck (and strategy) will become more and more different as the game unfolds. During the game, you have two goals:

  • Retrieve an Artifact token and escape the dragon by returning to the place you started, outside of the dungeon.
  • Accumulate enough points with your Artifact and other loot to beat out your opponents and earn the title of Greatest Thief in the Realm!

Will you be able to become the most crafted dungeons explorer?

The Expansion

We know the base game so now let me provide some more details about the Clank! The Mummy’s Curse expansion. It adds a wandering mummy to the pathways that players will explore (that white creature on the picture above!), new artifacts to acquire in the depths of the pyramid, new Dragon figure but most importantly – curses! Each time mummy enters the area where your adventurer is, you receive a curse (worth minus two VPs). TO get rid of this, you can fight the mummy – and either get money or reduce number of curses.

The board itself is much deeper and more complicated than the base game. It also comes in two, wonderful versions: Pyramid and Sphinx. That is very thematic and adds a lot of fun to the game!

The sessions

My first game was solo – actually with my two sons, 6 and 8 years old, who were managing the mobile phone app for Bot moves as well as assisted in the actual exploration on map. We managed to get to the bottom of the dungeon but fall a little short to get out….

Pyramid
  • Ready, steady go! All set for solo pyramid exploration!
    Ready, steady go! All set for solo pyramid exploration!
  • The final loot my adventurer managed to gather - two artifacts, plenty of items, some very interesting cards. But the greed was too big and I did not managed to reach surface...
    The final loot my adventurer managed to gather – two artifacts, plenty of items, some very interesting cards. But the greed was too big and I did not managed to reach surface…
  • The path I took exploring the pyramid. It was not so far away from reaching it top again...
    The path I took exploring the pyramid. It was not so far away from reaching it top again…
  • The indispensable application, which guides you through all your moves as well as calculates scores at the end. 126 VPs is not a bad result!
    The indispensable application, which guides you through all your moves as well as calculates scores at the end. 126 VPs is not a bad result!
Sphinx

The second experience with the Mummy expansion was completely different. Four seasoned boardgames players met to celebrate possibility of meeting during the COVID times and play some light title – actually, it was anniversary of when I got Clank! The game was much more competitive, as number of items and artifacts was exhausted pretty quickly and the run for survival started. Kuba was first to reach surface so he had a pleasure of attacking with Dragon each turn. He was pretty successful but both Magda and me barely managed to survive. Agnieszka unfortunately not…

  • The Sphinx map is pretty broad and deep. You do not get out of this so easily!
    The Sphinx map is pretty broad and deep. You do not get out of this so easily!
  • My loot at the end of the game was not so impressive. Indeed, I got the most valued artifact but for example my cards were mediocre.
    My loot at the end of the game was not so impressive. Indeed, I got the most valued artifact but for example my cards were mediocre.
  • To surprise of everybody first place was taken by Magda! Congrats!
    To surprise of everybody first place was taken by Magda! Congrats!

That was exciting and very, very funny game!

First impressions

Let me share now my impression regarding that expansion:

  • a new challenge – much larger maps, more difficult pathways to penetrate but also definitely larger loot, as we have more artifacts and victory-point generating items and cards
  • a moving, attacking and cursing Mummy – oh, that is so great addition. And you can actually battle it infinite times. I really like it!
  • thanks to the aforementioned Mummy but also the Sphinx / Pyramid maps, the game is very thematic and engrossing. I definitely have a feeling of looting ancient ruins for a great treasure!
  • beautiful components – especially maps – I really like how they were designed and produced
  • longer game – I always wanted to have possibility to build a better deck and play it for some time; here it is possible

All in all, this is by far the best version of Clank I played so far – especially the Pyramid map. Beautiful, more difficult, long, thematic. We had so much fun playing the full, 4-player variant but I also enjoyed to solo version.