I’ve been described by friends as many things over the years, but my personal favorite is “a fully functioning idiot.” Honestly, I think that’s a fairly accurate assessment.

That same quirkiness extends to my taste in board games, which is probably why my enthusiastically recommending a cooperative game about escorting elephants across the African savanna sounds completely out of character.

Generally speaking, I don’t like cooperative games, regardless of theme, but theme is rarely the problem for me.

Even more strangely, when I do like one, it rarely seems to be the ones everyone else loves. I have no explanation for this phenomenon other than the possibility that I’m simply wired differently somehow, or I’m a cooperative gaming hipster. Who knows!?

Take Pandemic, for example, one of the most beloved cooperative games around. I actively dislike it. Pandemic Legacy did nothing to change my opinion; it was just an extended version of the same game with the same problems. Gloomhaven bored me to tears. I still maintain it’s essentially shitty Dungeons & Dragons with all the roleplaying surgically removed, and I never understood the obsession with Clank! either. Its repetative if it’s anything.

Clearly, I’m the problem? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

So why has a cooperative game about herding elephants managed to win me over?

The answer has surprisingly little to do with elephants.

What I enjoy most about cooperative games is genuine adversity. I want a game that repeatedly beats us into the dirt before we finally scrape together a victory through experience, better teamwork, and a little bit of luck. That moment where everyone around the table erupts because you’ve finally solved a puzzle that seemed impossible three games earlier. That’s the magic of cooperative gaming to me and coincidentally, it’s what makes for a good solo game as well.

Which checks out. Among the cooperative games I love, you will find games like Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. An absolutetly brutal and unforgiving deck builder and the lesser-known Peloponnesian War by Mark Herman, a game, if you can win, you should call the designer, he will be impressed! Both are great games to play cooperatively, but for me, these are just fantastic solo games.

Tembo delivers exactly that energy.

I’ve also discovered over the years that there are three things I absolutely cannot stand in cooperative games.

First, I dislike “alpha gamer” designs where one experienced player effectively takes everyone’s turns for them. Pandemic has always been the poster child for this. Once someone at the table knows the optimal strategy, everyone else gradually becomes an unpaid intern carrying out instructions.

Second, I have very little patience for cooperative games that secretly don’t want you to lose. You know the type. They’re less games than guided theme park rides where the illusion of danger is far greater than the actual challenge. If failure requires the combined tactical brilliance of a potato, something has gone wrong.

Finally, I want games that earn their victories.

If my group beats a cooperative game on the first attempt, chances are it wasn’t difficult enough. That’s admittedly a slightly unfair benchmark because the people I regularly play with are seasoned hobby gamers. We tend to solve difficult games faster than most groups. Fate: Defenders of Grimheim is a good example. I genuinely believe it’s an excellent challenge, yet we’ve somehow managed to beat it every single time it’s hit the table on the highest difficulty level.

Tembo is different. I’ve now played it well over a dozen times. I’ve won once. And that’s exactly why I keep coming back.

Even the introductory challenges continue to force me into difficult decisions. Every defeat leaves me convinced there’s a better strategy waiting to be discovered, another approach I haven’t considered, another tiny optimization that might finally tip the scales in my favor.

That’s exciting. That’s the sort of cooperative game I want to play.

Behind the adorable artwork, charming elephants, and wonderfully approachable rules lies a genuinely demanding puzzle, one that’s far cleverer than it first appears.

And for someone who generally doesn’t enjoy cooperative games as a whole, that’s about the highest compliment I can give.

Overview

Final Score: (3.85) Great Strategic Puzzle

The best way I can describe Tembo is as a deceptively simple puzzle that’s constantly trying to outsmart you.

The objective itself couldn’t be more straightforward. You’re guiding a herd of elephants across a randomized savanna, escorting them safely from one side of the map to the other. If all your elephants make it to the destination, you win.

Unfortunately, the game seems to have taken that simplicity as a personal challenge.

The first obstacle is that your herd can’t simply march to the finish line. Along the way, there are six key locations that must be visited before victory is even possible. Every detour costs precious time and resources, forcing you to constantly weigh short-term efficiency against long-term necessity.

Then there’s your energy supply.

Energy is brutally limited and slowly drains away as you play certain cards. You can replenish it by visiting certain places scattered around the board, but doing so often requires abandoning the route you actually wanted to take. Ignore your energy, and you’ll eventually grind to a halt. Chase it too aggressively, and you’ll waste so much time that victory slips away anyway.

It’s a wonderfully uncomfortable balancing act. The elephants themselves introduce another layer of complexity.

Your herd must always remain connected, forming an unbroken chain stretching across the landscape. Periodically, you’ll need to play a Matriarch card, relocating the lead elephant somewhere else in that chain before gathering up the rest of the herd and beginning the journey again from that new position. It’s a clever mechanism that constantly forces you to rethink your route instead of simply extending the same line across the board.

As if that wasn’t enough, you’re also building the savanna as you play.

The terrain itself is created by laying down landscape cards, determining not only where your elephants can travel, but also providing the resting places needed to recruit additional elephants into your growing herd.

The game is further complicated by lions that will periodically activate and hunt your elephants, which, when successful, will permanently remove members of your herd and weaken your chances of success.

Individually, none of these systems are particularly difficult to understand. Collectively, they’re fiendishly difficult to master.

That’s where Tembo really shines.

Every turn feels like you’re solving a Rubik’s Cube where twisting one side somehow rearranges three others. You finally solve your energy problem only to discover you’ve broken your elephant chain. You build the perfect route only to realize you’ve skipped a mandatory objective. You manage to get your chain set up correctly, only to have it cut by a lion attack. Every solution creates two brand-new problems, and somehow that’s exactly what makes the game so satisfying.

For all of those reasons, I absolutely adore Tembo.

Interestingly, though, I don’t think the cooperative aspect is actually its biggest strength.

Don’t misunderstand me, it’s an excellent cooperative game I would recommend to any group of gamers. Sitting around a table with friends trying to untangle this puzzle is hugely rewarding, particularly after several failed attempts. Everyone contributes ideas, everyone spots different opportunities, and those eventual victories feel thoroughly earned.

But for me……the real magic is the solo game.

I’ve been slightly obsessed with Tembo for the better part of two weeks. I’ve replayed the opening challenges more times than I care to admit, and despite losing, well, pretty much always, I keep coming back for “just one more attempt.”

That’s the sign of a great puzzle to me, if it feels like I can’t solve it, that drives me to try over and over again.

Every defeat feels deserved. Every loss convinces me I was only one or two better decisions away from success. Every new game teaches me something I hadn’t noticed before.

I’ve only managed to beat the game a handful of times on the most basic difficulty levels after two weeks of trying. Either I’m stupid, or this game is hard!

Normally, that would frustrate me. Instead, it just makes me want to shuffle the cards and try again.

That’s probably the strongest recommendation I can give. Tembo isn’t simply difficult.

It’s addictively difficult, and for players who enjoy slowly unraveling a beautifully constructed puzzle, I think that’s exactly what makes it special, and it’s the main reason to get into this game.

Components

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: Looks great, feels great, is great.  Quality publication with an eye for great art.

Cons: You would have to be pretty picky to find a problem here.

Reviewing components has become a slightly strange exercise these days. Twenty years ago, component quality could make or break a game. Today, the industry standard is so consistently high that most productions simply clear the bar. It has almost become a pass-or-fail category rather than a meaningful differentiator.

Tembo is a perfect example of that.

Everything in the box is exactly what you’d hope it would be. The cards are excellent, the modular board tiles are thick and durable, the wooden elephant tokens are charming, and all of the cardboard components feel like they’ll comfortably survive hundreds of plays. Long before the components begin to show any wear, you’ll almost certainly have exhausted the game itself.

The presentation deserves particular praise. Once everything is laid out across the table, Tembo does a wonderful job of evoking the African savanna. The warm color palette, inviting artwork, and clean graphic design all come together to create a game that’s simply pleasant to look at.

The insert also deserves a quick mention. It’s thoughtfully designed, keeps every component neatly organized, and makes setup and teardown refreshingly painless. It sounds like a small thing, but after wrestling with enough poorly designed inserts over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate the ones that simply do their job.

If I had one criticism, it’s that the production occasionally wanders into the realm of unnecessary spectacle.

The cardboard standees used for trees and location markers certainly look nice on the table, but functionally, they don’t add very much. A simple token or tracker could have communicated the same information while reducing both production costs and setup time. I understand the designers were aiming for immersion, and aesthetically it works, but it also feels like an easy place where the game could have been streamlined without sacrificing the experience.

That’s a relatively minor complaint, though.

Overall, Tembo is a beautiful production. The artwork is gorgeous, the components feel premium without being excessive, and everything has clearly been designed to withstand repeated play. More importantly, the production serves the game rather than distracting from it. The iconography is clear and easy to remember, and there are plenty of cheat sheets and reference material, so you don’t have to go searching through the manual to answer the few questions you might have during play.

In the end, I really don’t have much to complain about.

It’s a polished, attractive package that feels every bit as refined as the gameplay inside.

Theme

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: The art sells this theme, and for a strategy puzzle game, the theme comes across surprisingly well.

Cons: This family-friendly theme may result in a disconnect between expectations and reality.  It may look like a family game, but this is definitely a complex strategic puzzle that casual gamers will struggle with.

For games that are fundamentally abstract puzzles, theme often takes a back seat to mechanics. Whether you’re moving cubes through a medieval marketplace or elephants across the African savanna, the underlying puzzle usually remains the real attraction.

Tembo is no exception.

That said, if you’re going to wrap a puzzle in a theme, marching a herd of elephants across the African savanna is a pretty inspired choice.

There’s something immediately calming about it. The artwork evokes the same feeling as a lazy Sunday afternoon watching a wildlife documentary, complete with the soothing narration of Sir David Attenborough gently explaining why the elephants are, once again, making better life decisions than the humans.

The artwork deserves particular praise.

The color palette is absolutely gorgeous. Warm oranges, rich greens, and soft earth tones combine to create a board that is both inviting and unmistakably African safari. Every illustration feels carefully considered, giving the game a personality that’s difficult not to appreciate. It’s one of those games that naturally draws people over to the table simply because it looks so attractive.

The adorable presentation is both one of the game’s greatest strengths and, oddly enough, one of its greatest deceptions.

Everything about Tembo screams “friendly family game.” The rules are straightforward, the elephants are charming, and the presentation couldn’t be more welcoming.

Then the game proceeds to repeatedly crush your spirit.

It’s almost comical how vicious the puzzle hiding beneath those cute illustrations actually is. I can easily imagine families picking this up expecting a relaxed cooperative adventure, only to discover they’ve accidentally signed up for an advanced logistics course run by elephants.

That contrast is strangely endearing.

The theme itself isn’t deeply woven into every mechanism, but it provides enough context that every action makes intuitive sense. You’re exploring the savanna, guiding your herd, managing their energy, and carefully navigating the landscape toward safety while avoiding predators. The mechanics never feel disconnected from the story the game is trying to tell.

As I understand it, Tembo is part of a broader series of nature-themed games, although I haven’t had the opportunity to play the others.

What I do know is that designer Asger Granerud has developed a reputation for elegant designs with memorable themes. Between Flamme Rouge, Heat: Pedal to the Metal, and now Tembo, there’s a clear pattern of taking relatively straightforward mechanisms and wrapping them in themes that immediately resonate with players.

The theme isn’t the reason I keep coming back to Tembo. The puzzle is.

But the beautiful presentation, charming artwork, and wonderfully peaceful atmosphere certainly don’t hurt. They make repeatedly losing feel just a little less painful, which, given how difficult this game is, might be one of its smartest design decisions.

Gameplay

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: The simple rules disguise a very complex puzzle that requires a lot of game knowledge and experience before you succeed.  Great challenge.

Cons: Despite best efforts from the design perspective, some games you will simply lose because of a bad draw, and some you will win because you got lucky.

Whenever I review a game, there are two questions I always ask myself.

The first is simple: Have I played this game before?

Not literally, of course. But most games borrow ideas from somewhere. Worker placement, deck building, tableau building, drafting; modern board games are built on decades of fantastic design, they are usually evolutions, not revolutions. But every now and then, a game presents a puzzle that feels genuinely fresh, a design that makes me stop and think, “I haven’t quite seen that before.”

Those games always get my attention.

The second question is equally important: Can I solve it immediately?

If the optimal strategy reveals itself during the first play, my interest tends to fade rather quickly. What keeps me coming back are games that slowly reveal themselves over repeated plays. Games where every defeat teaches you something, every victory results in you uncovering another layer, and you’re constantly left wondering if there’s an even better approach waiting to be discovered.

Tembo ticks both boxes.

On the surface, it looks like a pleasant little family game about escorting elephants across the African savanna. The rules are approachable, the artwork is adorable, and nothing about the presentation suggests a strategic monster lurking beneath. And perhaps Tembo is not exactly that, but it’s certainly a lot more than what’s on the tin suggests.

That’s wonderfully deceptive. As I’m writing this review, I’ve played Tembo roughly fifteen times. I’m still discovering new ideas. I’m still excited to play.

What’s interesting is that my first impression was actually fairly lukewarm. After my opening games I remember thinking, “This is interesting… but I’m not sure there is much more here than a push your luck game.”

Then I lost. Again. And again.

Those defeats bothered me enough that I refused to write this review until I’d actually beaten the introductory scenario. More importantly, as I lost, I could see that it wasn’t luck that was driving my defeats.

Eventually, I did win. That’s when the obsession started.

Instead of feeling satisfied, I immediately wanted to tackle the next challenge. Then the next one. Then the next. Every victory revealed another layer of the puzzle, and what initially looked like a pleasant family game gradually transformed into one of the most fascinating strategic puzzles I’ve played in a while.

The best way I can describe Tembo is that it rewards thinking several turns ahead without ever becoming mechanically complicated, with some luck management. The rules remain wonderfully straightforward, but the game is a lot deeper than the rules suggest.

The strategy doesn’t end with solving one of the puzzles; there is a lot more to learn after finishing the first couple of scenarios.

Whether you’re playing solo or cooperatively, I think three elements combine to make the game exceptional.

Every Puzzle Feels Different

The first is the dynamic map.

Every scenario changes the layout of the savanna, but the map tiles themselves also rotate between games. Add to that the impact of the locations of the lions and suddenly every puzzle demands a different approach.

Some layouts reward speed. Others reward caution. Some practically force you to detour for energy, while others encourage aggressive expansion before the lions begin closing off your options.

The game constantly asks you to reassess your plan rather than relying on whatever worked last time.

Information Is a Resource

The second thing Tembo quietly expects from its players is card counting.

Keeping track of how many Matriarch cards remain in the deck, how many Lion cards have already appeared, and what your odds are on the next draw becomes increasingly important as the difficulty ramps up.

It’s a little like Blackjack. Your odds of winning feel random until you card count, and then suddenly it feels far more strategic. Vegas refers to using strategy in Blackjack as cheating, because it’s that effective. Though card counting here is an intended element, there is even a reference card that helps you do it, and of course, it’s considerably less complicated to count cards here than in Blackjack. It’s an obvious part of the strategic expectation designed into the game.

You never have complete control over what happens next, but understanding the probabilities dramatically improves your chances of making the right decision.

Ignoring the deck is possible. Winning while ignoring is not unless you get really lucky.

Resource Management Is Everything

Finally, and most importantly, there’s resource management.

Energy and rested elephants are the lifeblood of the game. You’ll never have enough of either.

Energy constantly disappears, forcing difficult decisions about when it’s worth diverting from your route to replenish it. Running out is one of the endgame loss conditions, so its nescessary to keep your levels up. Meanwhile, your elephant herd gradually shrinks as lions become more aggressive and the board grows increasingly hostile.

Managing those two resources while simultaneously planning your route, tracking the deck, and preparing for future Matriarch resets creates an astonishing number of possible board states.

Every turn feels meaningful. Every mistake has consequences. Every successful move feels earned.

It’s very easy during your first few games to fall into the trap of simply hoping things work out.

“I’ll probably draw the card I need.” “Hopefully the lions don’t appear here.” “Maybe I can squeeze out one more move…”

Sometimes you’ll even get away with it. Tembo quickly teaches you that hope and luck is not a strategy.

The greater difficulty scenarios demand careful planning, disciplined resource management, and a willingness to think several turns into the future. That’s where the game truly comes alive.

Interestingly, while the cooperative and solo experiences are mechanically almost identical, I actually prefer the game solo. The cooperative restrictions around discussing cards create a slightly different challenge, and it’s still an excellent multiplayer puzzle, but it was the solo mode that completely hooked me. It’s where I’ve spent most of my time, and it’s where I think Tembo truly shines.

What I love most about the design is that it never advertises any of this.

On the surface, Tembo looks like an approachable cooperative family game with adorable elephants. And it kind of is, but hidden underneath that theme is one of the smart, very satisfying strategic puzzles well worth exploring by veteran gamers.

That’s a wonderful achievement. And it’s exactly why I think Tembo is a very underrated game. It deserves more attention in my humble opinion.

Replayability and Longevity

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: It’s going to take a lot of replays to complete all of the difficulty levels, and you’re definitely getting your money’s worth.

Cons:  Eventually, the puzzle will feel solved, and the game will run out of steam permanently.

Replayability is perhaps the most difficult category to score in Tembo because the answer depends entirely on what you’re expecting from the game.

From a pure value-for-money perspective, I don’t think there’s much to complain about. At roughly the €35–40 price point, Tembo offers a tremendous amount of gameplay. It took me around fifteen plays just to consistently solve some of the introductory scenarios, and I suspect the later challenges will demand at least that many again before I feel like I’ve truly mastered them. Then there is the potential of introducing it to new players and enjoying their discovery and experience.

Frankly, that’s already more plays than many games in my collection ever receive.

When I look across my shelves, the list of games I’ve played thirty or forty times is surprisingly short. Tembo is well on its way to joining that club, and that’s saying something.

That said, I don’t think Tembo is the sort of game you’ll play forever. At its heart, it’s a puzzle. And puzzles, by their very nature, have an endpoint.

I don’t necessarily mean they’ll ever be completely “solved.” The randomized maps, card order, and dynamic board states ensure there’s always some variation from game to game. But eventually you’ll reach a point where the game has taught you most of what it has to teach. The surprises become less frequent, the strategies more familiar, and your decisions increasingly instinctive.

For some people, that might sound like a weakness. I don’t see it that way.

Not every game needs to become a lifestyle game that lives permanently on your table. Sometimes a game simply needs to provide dozens of hours of engaging, memorable gameplay before gracefully stepping aside for the next experience.

Tembo strikes me as exactly that kind of game. It’s a journey with a destination.

Eventually, you’ll reach the end, feel immensely satisfied that you made it, and happily place it back on the shelf knowing it earned every play it received.

I think there’s something rather fitting about that. After all, every migration eventually comes to an end.

Conclusion

When I sat down to write this review, I honestly wasn’t sure where I was going to land. If anything, I expected to be fairly lukewarm on Tembo.

Cooperative games and I don’t exactly have the best relationship, and if I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t particularly excited when I first agreed to review it. There was even a small part of me that regretted saying yes.

I’m very happy to report that I was completely wrong.

Tembo didn’t just surprise me; it quietly became one of my biggest gaming obsessions of the past few weeks.

It’s an unusual game. A cooperative strategy puzzle about escorting elephants across the African savanna isn’t exactly the sort of pitch that immediately grabs my attention, yet behind that simple, yet charming presentation lies one of the most satisfying and cleverly designed cooperative puzzles I’ve played in quite a while.

What impressed me most wasn’t the difficulty. It was the very subtle depth brought out slowly, even if it was a bit frustrating at times.

Tembo is one of those rare games that’s incredibly easy to learn but remarkably difficult to master. The rules are concise, intuitive, and approachable, yet the strategic puzzle hiding beneath them took me well over a dozen games before I felt like I truly understood what the designers were asking of me.

That’s exactly the sort of challenge I enjoy and certainly wasn’t expecting it from Tembo, a game about herding elephants.

Although Tembo plays wonderfully as a cooperative experience, it was the solo mode that completely won me over. It captures everything I love about solitary puzzle solving: the constant experimentation, the gradual discovery of better strategies, and the satisfying feeling that every defeat is teaching you something rather than simply wasting your time.

Yes, sometimes the game just beats you because of bad luck, not unlike a bad beat in poker, and that is going to happen now and again, but the more you play, the less often it happens, and that is experience kicking in. It might seem random, especially at first, but this game hides a lot of strategic subtlety.

If you enjoy cooperative puzzle games that genuinely expect you to think, titles like The Crew, The Gang, or even the more puzzle-oriented side of Spirit Island, I think you’ll find a lot to love here.

I also think it makes an excellent family game, with one important caveat.

Don’t mistake approachable rules for an easy game.

Tembo is genuinely difficult, and younger players or more casual families may find the constant defeats frustrating. Fortunately, the designers anticipated this. The support cards provide valuable assistance, and there are optional rules that soften the challenge for groups who simply want a more relaxed experience, like playing without event cards. Personally, I recommend keeping the event deck in play. It adds another layer of unpredictability and keeps the puzzle feeling dynamic, even if it occasionally results in spectacular failure.

Spectacular failure, in my opinion, is half the fun.

Tembo won’t be for everyone. If you’re looking for a light-hearted cooperative game where victory is almost guaranteed, you’ll probably bounce off it.

But if you’re the kind of player who enjoys wrestling with a difficult puzzle, learning through repeated defeats, and finally earning a victory that feels genuinely deserved, Tembo is an easy recommendation.

A beautifully produced, deceptively deep, and wonderfully addictive puzzle game that earned its place on my shelf the hard way, by making me want to play “just one more game” fifteen times in a row.

That’s about as high a compliment as I can give.