For many years now, Evil Mike has always pointed out that all of my RPG games seem to mimic Journey to the Center of the Earth, even though there has been only one game where they actually went to the center of the earth (in a giant drilling machine, of course.) So when I saw that there was a board game called Journey to the Center of the Earth, I knew I had to get it. Ben also mentions that all of my games end in a cave with a women tied to a pole. So far I haven’t found the Woman Tied to a Pole game—but I’m still looking.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (which I am now abbreviating to just Journey ) is broken up into three major phases. In the first phase you traverse rocky caves as you travel downward through an extinct volcano. The idea is that you are searching for and discovering fossils along the way. The fossils give you points, and the points win you the game.  One game aspect that I’ll mention here is that each player may control any of the characters at any time. Each turn the player decides which explorer he wants to move. He does this in an effort to gather maximum points. In the second phase, all of the explorer hop onto a raft and gently float across a lake filled with fossils and whirlpools. This phase plays slightly different from the first because moving the raft moves all of the explorers. When an area containing a fossil is found, all of the players get a chance to participate and garner points. Another difference is at the end of each player’s turn, a water event card is drawn. These can be good (pay the right combination of cards, get a fossil) or bad (ball of lightening.)
The last phase of the game is a fast ride up a lava spewing volcano. Never mind we’re on a raft made of rope and wood. During this harrowing ride, no fossils are found, but many could be lost if you don’t have the right tools with you.
Journey is suppose to last about an hour, ours lasted two. Ben started out strong and rarely, if ever, got a bad card. The rest of us struggled along. Owen started gaining ground though and soon had a pile of fossils to match Ben’s. Mike and I spent most of the game locked in a battle to see who would come in last. Ben won, although Owen did rather well considering his humble beginnings. Mike and I ate more lasagna and tried to figure out how Ben cheated us.