A bag-building push-your-luck game for two to four players, about 15 minutes
A Way Back Home is a short family game by Morten Blaabjerg, Johannes Følsgaard and Lars Wagner Hansen (Agie Games, 2025) for two to four players. The night sky over the desert of Zura has gone dark; every player lights the constellations on their own board with crystals drawn from a cloth bag, and the game ends the moment somebody dares to call it.
Each player has a board with six paths running out from the centre — green, pink, purple, black, orange and blue — a bag, five crystals of each colour and two wild crystals. Before the game every player draws three crystals from their bag into a shared pool in the middle of the table, then drops the two wilds into the bag: 29 crystals to start, and a pool of three per player that grows and shrinks all game.
On your turn you do exactly one of two things.
Draw three crystals from your bag (you need at least three in it). Place one or two of them — never all three. A coloured crystal goes on the first empty space of its own path, counting from the centre; a wild goes on the first empty space of any path. Whatever you do not place goes into the shared pool, where the other players can take it.
Or take a colour: pick one colour and move every crystal of that colour from the pool into your bag. The wilds are a colour of their own. Taking refills a bag that is running low and stocks it with the colours you still need — but it lights nothing this turn.
If neither is possible (fewer than three crystals in the bag and an empty pool) the turn is lost. That is the only pass in the game.
Every path starts on a star worth nothing, dips through minus spaces, reaches its 0 space, and only then climbs into the points — before falling back into minus spaces at the far end. So the first crystals on a path cost you points; the reward comes to the player who keeps feeding it.
The black path is the long one: it peaks at 30 and then crosses the other paths. The blue path runs first through the second spaces of the other five paths. A crystal on a shared space counts for both paths, so a green crystal on green's second space also advances blue, and the blue path's own 0 space is only its seventh.
After your action, if your bag is empty and at least one of your paths has reached its 0 space, you may declare the end. Every other player then gets exactly one more turn; you get none. You are never forced to declare — a player who is behind can keep drawing and hope — but once the end is called it stays called.
Each path scores the value printed on its first empty space, counting from the centre: nothing for a path you never started, the last space for one you filled completely. Add up the six paths; the total can be negative. Highest total wins, and a tie goes to whoever comes first in turn order after the player who called the end.
The back of the board shows Zura by day and adds a character tile to the pool. While it lies there its rule replaces the take: the mushroom takes exactly two crystals of any colours, the horned lady one of every colour in the pool, the butterfly all of the rarest colour, the tentacle exactly five, the redhead all of two colours, the ram all of the most common colour.
Each character is looking for a building on the board. The first player whose path reaches it takes the tile, worth one point at the end — and loses it again by placing a crystal on the building itself. From then on the ordinary take is back for everyone.
The browser version plays the full game on either side of the board against AI opponents (an easy heuristic and two trained networks) or with friends online through a room code, in English or German, free and without an account.
Two to four. The shared pool starts with three crystals per player, so a four-player pool is richer and the take action matters more; a two-player game is a tighter race.
About 15 to 20 minutes. A game usually ends when a player empties their bag and calls the end, after which everyone else gets one final turn.
No. You place one or two of the three you draw; at least one always goes to the shared pool. That is the whole tension of the game: what you leave behind, the others can take.
A wild goes on the first empty space of any path you choose. In the pool the wilds count as a colour of their own, so taking them is a take like any other.
Right after your action, if your bag is empty and at least one of your paths has reached its 0 space. Declaring is optional; every other player then gets one more turn.
The other side of the board, played by day, with one character tile in the pool whose rule replaces the take action until somebody reaches the building it is looking for.
Yes. The version at deckades runs in the browser, against AI or with friends by room code, with no download and no signup.