If you ever dreamed of building railways while dodging tentacled nightmares and outsmarting your mates, you’re in the right place. In this review, I’ll share my adventures wrangling sheep, trains, and Cthulhu horrors with my board game group. Spoiler: there were a lot of dramatic gasps and at least one accidental Vegemite spill. Let’s see if this game actually delivers the wild, strategic ride it promises—or just leaves you lost in the outback with an empty tin of beans.
How It Plays
Setting up
First, slap the map of Australia on the table. Everyone chooses a color and grabs their matching trains, farms, and cubes. Shuffle the Outback tiles, deal out personality cards, and plop the old gods (the “Shemps”) out on their mystery spots. Don’t forget to set up the crazy train routes and the shared resource pool!
Gameplay
Each turn, you spend time (not money, sorry) to build railways, gather coal, hire weird locals, and scramble as the Cthulhu crew wakes up. It’s a bit like a supermarket dash but with more tentacles and less bread. Every move costs time, so plan or you’ll end up outpaced while the monsters throw a party on your farms. When the Old Ones activate, brace for chaos—they eat crops and sometimes your best hopes. There’s also combat, which uses cards and a little luck. Try not to roll as badly as I do.
Winning the Game
When the time marker hits zero, or the Shemps take over enough, the game ends. Count up victory points from completed farms, defeated monsters, and rescued kittens (okay, not really). If a player has the most points, they win! But watch out: if the Old Ones outscore everyone, nobody wins and you all feel a bit silly.
Want to know more? Read our extensive strategy guide for AuZtralia.
Game Mechanics and Player Interaction in Auztralia
Let me tell you, Auztralia is not your grandma’s train game—unless your grandma likes fighting Cthulhu. The mechanics bring a crazy mashup of train-building, farming, and monster bashing to the table, and somehow, it works. Each player works on their own little network of rails, farms, and ports. You choose actions on a shared time track, which I love because it means it’s not just about who can plan the most, but who does it fastest. Time is money and, in Auztralia, also tentacles.
The player interaction in Auztralia is sneaky. On the surface, you’re each doing your own thing: laying track, building farms, collecting coal, maybe daydreaming about sheep. But the Great Old Ones, those cranky monsters, don’t care about your personal space—they attack everybody. This pushes you to work together. In my group, we started out ignoring each other, but after losing half our farms in one round, we were begging for help. There’s just enough cooperation to keep things tense, but if you help a little too much, your buddy gets ahead. One friend (Bob, if you’re reading this, you know what you did) always sent monsters my way when I was closest. I still haven’t forgiven him.
There’s a bit of everything: resource management, tile placement, and pulse-pounding monster attacks. Turns never feel too long, which is great, as some of us have the attention span of a goldfish (myself included). Next up, let’s see if Auztralia can juggle skill and luck without dropping the tentacled ball…
Strategy vs. Luck: Which Reigns Supreme in AUZTRALIA?
I always get nervous when a game seems to have a lot of moving parts. My friend Dave will always find a way to break things if he can (seriously, never trust him near a train network). But AUZTRALIA surprised me. You can plan your route, count your resources, and choose your battles. There’s real strategy in how you build, expand, and fight creepy monsters lurking in the bush. I like having choices, and in AUZTRALIA, there are plenty—timing your actions, picking which monsters to take on, and guessing what your pals will do next.
Now, is there luck? You bet. There are moments when those card draws feel like getting socks for Christmas. Sometimes you need a single iron to finish your port, but instead you pull a pesky Cthulhu waking event. That stings. But I didn’t feel completely at the mercy of chaos. The strategy outweighs the chance, and you can hedge your bets.
The one bit that bugged me is the combat. Sometimes you roll badly and your giant steampunk train gets stomped by a flappy bat. That’s frustrating, and it can make your brilliant plan into a disaster. You need to prepare for things going sideways, and that keeps everyone on their toes.
So, AUZTRALIA keeps the luck just cheeky enough to make every game wild, but lets clever planning win the day. Next up: we’ll unbox AUZTRALIA’s theme and gawk at the artwork like art critics who drank too much coffee.
Theme and Artwork: Lovecraft Down Under
If there’s one thing Auztralia nails better than a kangaroo punch, it’s the theme. This game takes the classic train-and-farm vibe and jams in wriggly, tentacled monsters that look like they wandered in from a cosmic horror party. My friends and I kept making forced Aussie accents and shouting, “Oi, watch out for that Cthulhu!” Don’t worry—no friendships were lost, just a little dignity.
The artwork in Auztralia is a feast for the eyes. Every board section and card oozes the vibe of a twisted down-under, complete with rusty rails, grimy harbors, and just enough eldritch weirdness to make you check under the table for lurking nightmares. The monster tokens and cards are detailed and way too friendly-looking for beings that want to destroy human progress. Don’t get me started on the sheep—the real MVPs. Never thought I’d care more about wool than sanity.
I especially like the player mats. They lay out your options in a way that even my buddy Steve, who once tried to build a railroad through the ocean, couldn’t mess up. The iconography helps keep things clear, so you can stare at the cosmic beasties and still remember it’s your turn. All in all, the theme and artwork tie Auztralia together like coffee and Tim Tams.
But enough about pretty pictures—next up, I’ll spill the beans on why you might (or might not) want to play this game a zillion times with your mates!
Replay Value and Group Fun Factor in Auztralia
If you want a game you can bring to the table more than once before your group flings it out the window, Auztralia might be your jam. Let me tell you about the replay value. After four full games (and one where Dave flipped the board because his sheep were eaten… long story), this game is still getting requests from my crew. And these people have the attention span of a goldfish in a disco.
Auztralia changes up with each play. The map tiles come out different every time, so we never see the same Australia twice. Sometimes the Old Ones (the monsters, not my mates after two beers) pop up in weird spots, or close enough that you genuinely fear for your railway. There are loads of paths to try and new strategies to mess with your friends—do you farm? Go full military? Gamble on mining? Or just try to survive as the tentacles creep closer? The best part: even when someone is clearly winning, everyone feels like things could flip upside down quicker than a kangaroo on a trampoline.
Group fun gets a solid thumbs up. There’s plenty of talking, deal-making, and moments when you all yell at the same monster. That sort of energy keeps the table lively. Auztralia also throws in enough surprises to stop the game getting stale, and even the losers (often me) have a laugh.
Would I recommend Auztralia? Absolutely! It’s wild, it’s fun, and it keeps coming back for more. Unless you hate kangaroos or fun. Then maybe not.
Conclusion
Auztralia is one of those oddball games that somehow brings together train routes, Cthulhu monsters, and sheep—yes, actual sheep—and makes it work. I’ve played it with my group more times than I’d admit, and it always brings tense moments, a few laughs, and some creative insults when the Old Ones start rampaging. The mix of strategy and luck keeps everyone guessing, but it’s still fair enough that you feel smart when you win. The art and theme are top notch, and, honestly, where else can you blow up a god with a locomotive? It’s not perfect (luck sometimes messes you up), but if you like unique themes, player competition, and a game you won’t tire of after two plays, this is for you. That wraps up this review—now go wrangle some cosmic horrors. Or sheep. Or both.
