Welcome to the Great Smoky Mountains!
Hike It! is a heavily themed, mid-weight, strategy-based tabletop board game that offers solo, competitive, and team options. Every game is unique because YOU determine your route, you pack your own gear, and you decide how much you want to push your luck to brave the elements and mother nature.
Your objective in this thematic medium-weight board game is to have the best experience trekking to your three waypoints in the Great Smoky Mountains before hiking back to your trailhead. Your experience is measured in victory points, earned by collecting scenic spot and skill set tokens, completing side hikes, and maintaining your health. And by completing your hike first you earn extra victory points and can return to the game as an aggressive bear to scare the remaining hikers back to their own trailheads!
Strategy & Gameplay
With multiple paths to victory, there are a lot of choices that need to be made during your backwoods trek.
Plan your route not only to complete your hike but to also collect skills and experiences along the way. Be ready, however, to adapt and reroute when problems arise.
Be prepared to overcome injuries, malfunctioning gear, dehydration, bad weather, exhaustion, and encounters with wildlife. These are the trials of an experienced backpacker.
Decide how much gear and water to pack, and when to resupply these during your hike. Manage the weight of your pack based on how fast you want to travel.
Learn various outdoor skills by overcoming the challenges that you face. Combining and mastering these skills will make subsequent challenges easier to deal with.
Hiking too quickly or too slowly could prove costly. Go too fast and you may miss out on experiences and learning skills, but lollygagging may put you face-to-face with a bear!
The most important thing during a trek is to keep healthy and energetic. Otherwise the likelihood of finishing your hike – let alone surviving – will be extremely reduced.
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Some of the Components
1 Double-Sided Game Board
This beautifully detailed map of Great Smoky Mountains National Park serves as the game’s board and depicts actual hiking trails, campsites and scenic spots found in the park!
4 Dual-Layered Player Boards
Your packboard is your lifeline during your trek. It monitors your health, holds your gear and water, tracks your waypoints, and organizes your skill sets.
47 Wooden Meeples, Markers & Tokens
Every hiker meeple, vehicle meeple, bear meeple, campfire token, health marker, and waypoint marker is made of wood and has silkscreen artwork.
69 Wooden Gear & Water Tiles
Carry gear & water in your backpack to cope with stretches of bad weather as well as adversities that you will face while out on the trail.
43 Wooden Scenic Tokens
Whenever you pass a scenic spot on the trail, make sure to pick up its token: each one is a real location in the park and is worth end-game points.
30 Weather Cards
Weather cards let you know the 3-day forecast so you can be prepared for inclement weather that’s coming your way.
4 Wooden Weather Dice
At the start of your turn, roll the weather dice to see if today’s forecast was accurate. If it was, hopefully you prepared for it!
100 Trail Cards
Trail cards represent the unplanned and uncontrollable events that can occur during any lengthy backpacking trip.
54 Skill Cards
Skill cards are earned when you overcome weather or challenges. Three skill cards with the same icon can be exchanged for skill set tokens.
30 Wooden Skill Set Tokens
Three skill cards with the same icon can be exchanged for a skill set token that is worth five victory points at the end of the game.
30 Side Hike Cards
Side hikes are optional personal objectives you may complete during your trek that offer a substantial boost in victory point.
Solo Mode!
The “Solo Hike” mode is a single-player version of Hike It! that is included with the base game . In solo mode, you take your turn as you would in multiplayer mode, then draw an AI card and follow its instructions. Solo mode features:
- Tarot-sized cards for the AI’s turn with simple instructions.
- Replication of changing map conditions.
- Outscore the AI to win.
(The above example shows all potential A.I. options; a normal card will only ever have 2-4 of these options.)
Dice Tower Crowd Surfing – Hike It Preview
A Board Game Rundown – Preview
Board Game Garden – Review
Shelf Clutter – Preview
Board Game Rundown – How to Play
Board Game Binge – Interview
Blue Falcon Board Gaming – Interview
GEN CON 2022
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Running Board Gamer
“Hike It! wasn’t on my radar, but after seeing it in the First Exposure Hall at GenCon and talking with one of the designers, it definitely is now! The art, iconography, and level of detail are really impressive. The design and mechanics really contribute to a solid, fun game. This deserves to be a big hit!”
Board Game Rundown
This is a very strong recommendation for me. This is not only a game that I would recommend to other people, but a game I want in my collection. I’ve never played a game quite like Hike It!
Board Game Rundown
“I’ve hiked some of these trails and I’ve seen some of these waterfalls, and the fact that this is an accurate portrayal of the Smoky Mountains is a phenomenal theme and just a phenomenal decision to base a game around. And it’s really fun to play!”
Board Game Garden
“Hike It! is probably the most thematic hiking game that I’ve ever played. It’s a great game for people new to the hobby, but it’s also great for people who have been in the hobby for years who want to play a good, thematic hiking game.”
Dice Tower
“It seems like a passion project, but they didn’t just throw passion at it, but skill also. You should hike it – I mean, back it.”
Dice Tower – Camilla
“I am so excited about this game! I’m huge into the thematic integration. You can tell the designer knows hiking, having to plan your trek and what you are taking…they did their homework.”
Little Big Thumbs
“After one play, my impressions are that Hike It! is a polished project of passion, created by an avid hiker and a professional mapmaker, and the final production is going to be something special…I’m planning on being a day one backer.”
Shelf Clutter
“The thing I like most about this game is that the more gear you carry, the less movement you have on your turn. You are going to have to find that balance of having enough gear to feel safe, but giving yourself enough movement to get to your next waypoint.”
Dice Tower
“I think this looks terrific! I love the theme – I’ve done quite a bit of hiking through the Smokies. Everything about this game looks good. I love the board and how it’s a topographic map.”
Manufacturing & Fulfillment Schedule
Pre-Order Your Copy Today!
The Kickstarter campaign has ended, but there is still time to pre-order your copy through what’s called a “late pledge”. The late pledges will only be open for a limited time, so don’t lollygag.
The Kickstarter campaign is live. The Kickstarter version will be significantly better than any potential retail version, so don’t miss out.
Photo Gallery
The Designers
This is TJ’s first game, and has taken him and his team over four years to fully develop. TJ also enjoys disc golfing, binging YouTube, and rooting for the University of Tennessee Volunteers (Go Vols!).
Ron enjoys hiking and rockhounding in his home province of Nova Scotia.