Archives: Projects

Designer: Vlaada Chvatil
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Date Released: 2007

Number of Players: 2-4
Age Range: 10 and up
Setup Time: 10-15 minutes
Play Time: about 60 minutes

Game Mechanics:
Dice Rolling
Pick-up and Deliver
Real-Time
Tile Placement

Game flow:
Galaxy Trucker is split into three rounds. So, if you want to abbreviate the duration of the game, you can play one or two rounds instead of the full three. During each round, you build a space craft out of space junk. You’re on a mission to pick up and deliver the most cargo while warding off pirates, navigating asteroid fields, and traveling the most distance.

Each round, in turn, is split into two very different phases: building and traveling. The building phase of a round has each player race in real-time to build the best junker spaceship out of the available pile of components that are placed face down and shuffled. Once the first person finishes their ship, they take the first player token (you get a head start on the track) and flip over the timer. The remaining players only have until the timer runs out to finish their ships.

All ships have to work logically. You have to connect single pipe connections to other single pipe connections or universal connectors, and double pipe connectors fit with double pipe and universal connectors. If at any time your ship ceases to make sense on a construction level, you must discard enough tiles of your ship to make the connectors work. (For example, you get hit by a laser beam and lose a construction tile, but that construction tile was the only thing keeping two sections of your ship connected—you’ll have to decide which half of your ship you want to keep.) Once everyone’s ships are in order, proceed to the travel phase.

The travel phase diverges from the first by a large measure. Players pull from a deck of cards (the galaxy deck) that represent the galaxy you’re traversing. You deal with any obstacle—if this is any—or if you come across a planet, you can pick up cargo to score points. The galaxy deck isn’t too big, and once you play the last card of the deck, you finish the round. Then, you tally up your points and go to the next round.

Review:
Galaxy Trucker isn’t forgiving for new players. If this is your first time playing the game, you should play the first round by itself so you get the hang of the game. If you’re playing with someone who’s playing for the first time, be kind and play a test round.

I didn’t mention this in the game flow, but there is one very important strategic element to this game. While you’re building your ship, you have access to three piles of cards that represent three quarters of the galaxy cards during the next phase. You’re given the option to look at these cards so you’ll have an idea of what to expect during your upcoming journey. The only problem with this is that you’re sacrificing build time for planning.

The first time I played Galaxy Trucker I didn’t look at the galaxy cards. I’ve since added this mechanic to my play style, and it’s invaluable. You’d be surprised how the addition of a simple game mechanic like this makes for very good strategy.

No two games of Galaxy Trucker play the same and this leads to a game that’s infinitely replayable.

Verdict: A fun game that comes off as a simple real-time, building game but has one strategic wrinkle to it that adds replayability and enjoyment.

Designer: Christopher Badell, Paul Bender, Richard Launius, and Adam Rebottaro
Publisher: Greater Than Games, LLC
Date Released: 2012

Number of Players: 2-5
Age Range: 13 and up
Setup Time: Less than 10 minutes
Play Time: 10-90 minutes

Game Mechanics:
Cooperative Play
Hand Management
Variable Player Powers

Game flow:
Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics is the second expansion for the popular comic book themed card game. I won’t go into detail with the base game flow. If you didn’t catch our Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game review, you can read it here. In short, Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game, where players team up with each other to beat the stuffing out of a super villain—which has a dummy hand similar to Bridge. Now let’s get to the new stuff in this expansion.

Review:
Infernal Relics is a nice departure from the previous Sentinels expansion Rook City and the base game. Like the Rook City heroes, Infernal Relics heroes are highly specialized. But Rook City’s heroes were straightforward one trick ponies, while the Infernal Relics heroes add some nice twists to the gameplay.

NightMist has deadly offensive powers, but this power can be a double-edged sword. She can damage herself and her teammates. Meanwhile, The Argent Adept is the consummate teammate, aiding anyone in need. He does this through buffing, adding card draw, and healing. But if he’s your team’s leading damage dealer, something’s gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Infernal Relics’ environments are breaths of fresh air too. The base game environments ranged from somewhat neutral to leaning toward the heroes, while the Rook City environments punished players. Infernal Relics environments are even handed. Depending on the flow of the game, they can be either beneficial or detrimental to the heroes and villains.

And speaking of villains, we have some interesting deck concepts for them in Infernal Relics. Akash’bhuta has a whopping 200 HP, but don’t be too intimidated—there’s sort of a win condition involved with Bhuta. The Ennead is Sentinels first attempt at a super villain team. If that sounds daunting, that’s because it is. Add GloomWeaver and Apostate to the mix and you get an odd and fun mixture of villains.

Verdict: When I first played Infernal Relics, I didn’t like it, but it grew on me. The heroes are more complex than ever before. The villains and environments have great depth too. Infernal Relics shows that Greater Than Games doesn’t just turn out the same old tired mechanics.