Despite being the winner of the 2014 Speil des Jahres – the most prestigious award in board games – the thought of betting on racing camels didn’t sound all that riveting to me. On a lark, I tried it out with some friends at Snakes and Lattes and it really caught us off guard with how fun it is. Camel Up mixes together a unique take on the roll-and-move mechanic along with different ways of betting on the race that make every race exciting and silly. It does scale well, as the game claims to support from 2-8 players, though I think it works best with 3-5. I’m not qualified enough to say whether Camel Up deserves to be a game of the year champion, but it’s certainly earned a spot on my list of Awesome Board Games You Should Play.
Unbeknownst to me, camel racing is actually a thing. Ignorant me thought that it was simply a goofy theme to justify the mechanisms that drive Camel Up. The more you know, I guess! In any case, Camel Up takes you to the race track, where five camels are racing each other around a pyramid. You’re not in control of the camels per se, but you are making bets on the race in hopes of making the most money by the time the first camel crosses the finish line. Is this a camel racing board game worth backing?
In Third Person 