The game is nominated for a brave approach to a board game mechanic that many designers are quick to shy away from; namely that of negative feedback loops.
In Burden, one wrong step in the african landscape can mean the beginning of a death spiral that sees you forming dark bonds with your european expedition leaders and sliding ever further towards death (and 21 negative victory points, which is essentially the same thing to a board gamer).
These ‘death spirals’ are the result of an inverse kind of point salad scoring- each point of damage or horror might beget another one, either right now or a little later because you discarded a card you’d have used to dodge it.
It can get genuinely emotional to watch your expedition slide into doom, but it’s also what keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire way through.