Where No Man Has Gone Before
One of the latest non-video gaming crazes that has blown through the Cleveland based Rumble Pack crew has been the quasi-board game: Race for the Galaxy.
Designed by: Tom Lehmann
Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Players: 2-4 (1-5 with expansion)
Play time: 30 minutes
Style: Card game, Civilization Building.
Race for the Galaxy is a card game really.
Outside of the over sized box and a fancy insert all you get is a set of cards and a couple cardboard counters to track points.So, no, it isn’t much of a board game as there is no board (unless you count the quick reference cards). So why have we been raving about this game? Easy, it’s the cheapest collectible card game (CCG) to get into.
Admittedly, I spent some portion of my misguided youth away from the Genesis and 64 fruitlessly playing such nerdery as AD&D and Magic: The Gathering. And part of me still loves the CCG style game, but no part of me fondly remembers the cost of collecting thousands of cards. Race for the Galaxy perfectly, and cost effectively, fills that void.
The number one reason it fills the void so well is the short play time. 30 minutes is not a huge time commitment. Waiting for friends to show up? Play a game of Race. Got time before the big game comes on? Play a game of Race. Podcasting? Play a game of Race…
…well, maybe not that last one.
Arrows? Numbers? Cryptic symbols?
It’s a nerd’s dream come true!!!
Partly to make the game concise and elegantly, but mostly to make translating it easy for the publisher, the abilities and actions of cards were condensed into a symbolic language unique to the game. At first it’s hard to understand what a card does, and that’s very intimidating. But ultimately the confusing symbols became clear cut, and one of my favorite aspects of the game.
About those symbols, they benefit you on one of six actions that can occur in a round. Each round every player secretly selects and action they want to happen and shows their selection at the same time. Only the actions chosen occur in that round. So if you have a sweet power in phase V (Production) you’d better select it yourself.
Actually, the real meat of the game comes once you understand the symbols and the basics of producing goods and burning them to make victory points. With that under your belt you can start determining what other people will choose and piggyback on their selections and hamper their growth by selecting phases that don’t help them. It still feels like solitaire-ish but there’s very deep interaction between players if you know where to look.
Remember this son: “Everyone from Alpha Centauri is a dick. Without exception”
So how does the game stay fresh? Randomness.
Usually random elements are the most frustrating elements of games (Settler’s of Catan) comes to mind. But with the exception of a few rare cases where someone drew the perfect cards to complement their strategy Race handles the randomness very well. In fact getting a random start world every game and drawing random cards is what has made putting in 20+ plays enjoyable, and will continue to make plays enjoyable for a long time to come.
If you are at all interested in getting into a complex CCG but don’t have the cash to drop on cards, consider getting Race for the Galaxy (and Dominion too, but I’ll talk about that some other time) to give yourself a fix. And don’t forget there’s an expansion out there to enhance the game and add a 5th player, with another expansion due out this year to add a 6th.Go ahead, put down the controller, and pick up some cards.
Photos from BoardGameGeek.com
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In my youth (and still today I must admit) I love CCGs, tabletop gaming, and board games.
I have soaked quite a few of my hard earned dollars into Magic, and more recently into the WoW CCG (I know it is on the more expensive side, but playing a Raid deck in WoW CCG is like combining great elements from Magic and AD&D, lots of fun).
A few questions to clear things up:
Do all of the cards come with the game?
Assuming that they do (since that is what would make this more affordable than Magic) that seems to take away part of the allure of Magic. I always thought part of Magic’s charm was to build a deck around a card or idea, and to try to make your strategy more efficient than the opposition’s. Do you get to do that in this? Or is it more that you build your strategy and it can be a different strategy each time?
All the cards do come in the box. The game proceeds in turns all drawing from the same deck. Effectively, it’s like playing with a different Magic deck each game. While some people think the game is solitaire, the interaction of the game is playing from the same pool of cards and competing for efficient action.