Cartographers
Draw terrain shapes onto your own fantasy map, chase seasonal scoring goals and survive ambushes while everyone plays from the same revealed cards.
Reveal exploration cards and draw the shown terrain shapes onto your own map sheet, choosing among legal shape and terrain options.
Four scoring cards rotate through the seasons, while ambush cards let another player place monster terrain on your map to create negative pressure.
Why We Love It
Cartographers gives everyone the same terrain prompt but produces very different maps. Seasonal scoring goals reward planning, while ambush cards create the only direct interference.
About Cartographers
Reveal exploration cards and draw the shown terrain shapes onto your own map sheet, choosing among legal shape and terrain options.
Four scoring cards rotate through the seasons, while ambush cards let another player place monster terrain on your map to create negative pressure.
Game at a Glance
Draw Terrain
Translate each revealed card into a legal shape on your personal map.
Chase Seasonal Goals
Different scoring pairs matter in different seasons.
Survive Ambushes
Opponents place monster shapes that can create penalties if left exposed.
Plan the Whole Map
Leave useful space for future terrain while minimizing awkward gaps.
What is Cartographers?
Cartographers is Jordy Adan’s flip-and-write map game. Thunderworks lists support for 1–100 players, a 30–45 minute duration and age 10+.
Everyone draws on their own map sheet while using the same revealed exploration cards, making player count largely independent of turn time.
How the game works
Each exploration card shows one or more terrain shapes. Players choose an allowed shape and terrain type, then draw it onto their map.
Four scoring cards are assigned to seasonal positions. Each season scores two goals, while monster ambushes force opponents to place hostile shapes that can create penalties.
The decisions that define it
Every shape must serve current scoring while leaving enough room for future terrain. Large efficient areas can score well now but create awkward holes later.
Because future scoring pairs are visible, strong play plans across multiple seasons rather than optimizing only the current one.
Who is it for?
Choose Cartographers if you want a spatial puzzle that scales from solo to very large groups with almost no added downtime.
Choose Kingdomino for physical tiles or Cascadia for wildlife scoring and a traditional board-game structure.
Learn Cartographers in depth
Publisher sources & scope
Checked September 16, 2026. This hub covers the original Cartographers base game.