Board Game Arena

Tembo, the Swahili word for elephant, invites you to guide a majestic herd through the savanna in this cooperative adventure. Your mission is far from easy: you need to lead the elephants to safety, but the journey is full of obstacles. The herd must find resources, like food and water, go through ever-changing landscapes, and steer clear of lions.
 
On your turn, you play a card to either expand the savanna or advance your herd across its dangerous terrain. Each card offers two potential actions, and your position at the table determines how you can play it, adding layers of strategy to every decision and creating a multi-layered puzzle for you and your team to solve.
 
Success will require strategic thinking, collaboration, and a clever use of your limited options. Tembo is a test of unity and skill as as you work together to lead your herd to triumph. https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=tembo
 
Let's thank the many game designers, Dan Halstad, Mads Fløe, Asger Aleksandrov Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pedersen, not forgetting Sidekick Games, the publisher, as well as Tisaac and KuWizard the developers who made it happen for Board Game Arena.
 
This was your Monday release
The head of the herd is calling far, far away, off you go with care and fair play…

I don't understand anything about this game. There's no tutorial, just a manual. I read it, but it doesn't really fit the game at all. So I guess I'll just have to wait and play other games first.

jenzanos wrote: ↑02 February 2026, 15:11 I don't understand anything about this game. There's no tutorial, just a manual. I read it, but it doesn't really fit the game at all. So I guess I'll just have to wait and play other games first.

As of now, there is no German rulebook, only an English one. The game hasn’t been published yet, it’s only on BGA. The English version should be published soon, others might take longer, and so will the rulebooks, I guess. The rulebook you clicked on is for a different game; the English link works. The publisher told me they have already told BGA to get rid of the wrong link, but apparently, BGA didn’t do anything about it. I know rulebook links are a community thing, but in this case, downvoting didn’t help, and BGA should just delete the wrong link.

Tembo is a great game!

Oh, the page seems to have changed! The German rulebook is gone now. So I’ll just wrap this up and hope for more changes: just one of the links “English rulebook” with 9 upvotes or “Tembo rulebook” with 4 upvotes is needed. They are the same (or at least look the same at first glance). All other rules links refer to a different game.

Why aren't these basic issues fixed before release? Recently, I have seen many games being released without a description below.

Given the resources spent on implementing the game (after publishing it in the first place), it comes across as rushed and unprofessional to leave such an important factor for playability and adoption in the community up to unpaid volunteers.

Translations and tutorials are rewarded with gift points, but there are no incentives to write up a good summary of the rules, not even a shout-out or mention anywhere.

The least you could do is set up a system for gift points, the other thing would be to add a field in the wiki for main author and contributors which is visible. The third thing is to fix the mark-up, which is long overdue. And the best solution would be to get publishers to sort this out before publishing their games on BGA. Clearly, some do already.

Yep, another game without rules summary. And it's not tagged as co-op either. Please actually prepare the games before you release them.

Ratings on BGG for this game aren’t good, I think they would be higher if both BGA and the publisher had put some more effort into the details of the release. As I’ve stated, both the game itself and the BGA implementation are excellent. Putting a game on BGA before it’s released in physical form is a great idea, and I will
definitely buy Tembo, but there are some pitfalls that could be easily avoided, at least from an outsider’s perspective: wait for the tutorial to be ready, check and fix the rules links etc.

Do not understand what to do and why. The rules are lackluster. Not for me. Back to Lacerda Games

A tutorila has been added. You can find it here.