This is a review of Race for the Galaxy

What were those words coming out of my 3 year old's mouth. She hated me? Now, my three year old is quite smart. In fact she's an ace at Othello, and quite cruel at Carcassonne. However, Race for the Galaxy is probably a little beyond her comprehension level. In our first game, she selected what she wanted to play, and how she wanted to play it. Occasionally she'd ask for my advice, which I had no idea since I didn't understand the game completely myself. So I didn't give her any. She had 8 Victory points when we ended the game, which albeit was second place (and I came in dead last, so obviously I wasn't that good either).

The next game I actually won, still didn't quite figure out how, and she came in last. At which point she said she wanted to keep one of the cards, and then try to run off with it. She was being a poor sport and ran off upset. From the other room as I grimace towards my friends she shouted..."I hate you Daddy right now!" She didn't win, came in dead last, and my worst crime...I didn't let her keep the card she wanted to keep from the game.

So we figured out a little more about how to play, and hello, here was a little girl. When I questioned how she felt, she said she still hated me...but then she also wanted to play. I told her I thought it was a little beyond her and she should just let the adults play, but then she scooped up the green cards and insisted that we let her play again. Obstinate girl...I wonder who she gets the attitude from.

Anyways, with that intro, it's off to the rest of the review. In summary Race for the Galaxy scores as follows.

Components = 3
Rules Presentation = 3
Gameplay = 6
Personal Tilt= 6
Reuseability = 10
Useability = 8

Final Score = 6

This is noticeably lower than many other scores. Hopefully I'll explain why it rates as an AVERAGE game rather than an above average game below.

Components - This game stinks as a board game...probably because it's a card game. In that light the cards are okay, but certain cards get high usage and will probably wear out rapidly. These are the role cards known as Action cards. Every player has their own, and they get used constantly. However they are not as durable as the hardened cardboard used in other games such as San Juan (for a fair comparison between card games). This means that this particular part of the game will wear rapidly.

The chits are nice thick cardboard chits that represent victory points. These are nice and sturdy as they go, the one VP pieces however, are easily lost as they are very small. Cleanup can be a little painful, but not any worse than many other games.

I did enjoy that the game had round summary sheets on cardstock. This aided greatly when learning the game.

However, the game is going to suffer greatly when those action cards wear out. My copy already has the edges of the action cards looking a tad more rough then the rest of the cards of the game. Maybe it's how we play, maybe we're a little rougher on games, but they seem to be wearing a little faster than cards in other games. I suspect it's because of how much use they get, and hence would think that replacing those cards with maybe something a little thicker or durable would be nice.

Overall, the game is a card game, and hence as durable as cards can be.

It scores a 3.

Rules Presentation - The rules are nice for presenting what phases are played and how they are played, but terrible for explaining how the cards in the game work themselves. Part of this lends to a strength of the game later on, but for those who are trying to learn the game, the rules aren't going to help as much as just plain experience in playing.

The rules have symbols and short explanations of the symbology, but these explanations sometimes are not clear. Luckily we had a player that knew what they were doing, or I think I still would be lost on what half the symbols did. In this, the rules could be much more explicit in their explanations of what each symbol does.

I think the symbology section needs a solid reread and re-edit for people who are more simple minded (like me) in order to have the cards better explained so we aren't quite so lost as to what a particular card does.

The reason this can be difficult is that there are so many different and unique cards in the game. To make a listing of all of them could take a dozen or more pages more. On the otherhand, I've been spoiled by games like Puerto Rico and San Juan which explain in more depth just what different portions of a game do.

This rulebook was almost useless on decyphering some of the card codework. That means the rulebook is below average.

It scores a 3.

Gameplay - Unfortunately, the poor rules presentation relates directly into the gameplay portion. Beginning players may be completely lost on the first game as they have no idea what many of the cards are supposed to do. Based on a first play, it would be easy to rate this game as almost broken, or at a 1.

However, the game is NOT broken...in fact far from it. The game actually can flow quite well. Learning the game can be quite hard, and waiting for beginning players to figure out what to do can be quite aggravating (as my friend would attest). This greatly slows down the game. Once one learns the game, it flows rather quickly and a game that lasted 2 hours for a group of beginners, can last only 30 minutes for the learned.

Once one learns the game, it has a great deal of depth and various strategies one can experience. This is due to the vast number of different cards the game possesses. I really don't have time to go in depth of what all the cards do, however there are various resources here on the RftG page which have nice tables which explain the cards to beginners. I would highly recommend one using that if just beginning.

The game is divided into phases. Each player has 7 cards, with each of the five phases on them (two of the phases have two different card options). Each card grants a special bonus for it's set phase. Each player chooses a card to use. Then they all simultaneously show the cards. Only the phases to which the upturned cards reflect take place. Hence if no one chose to use a card for the Explore phase, the Explore phase would not occur.

Gameplay then goes with each player being able to do that phase (phases being in order, Explore, Develop, Settle, Consume, and Produce).

Explore basically gives the players opportunities to draw cards to add to their hands.

Develop gives them the ability to build industrial cards by placing those cards down and paying a card cost into the discard pile (Industry known as Development is represented by Diamonds).

Settle allows players the ability to place Planet cards on the table (represented by circles on the cards) and pay the cost either with cards being discarded, or if they have military power, by showing that they have the military strength to play that card.

Consume allows players to discard cards that are placed face down on planets. In return they can get more cards for their hands, OR get victory points, or possibly get both. They can only consume if they have a development or planet that has the ability to consume. Without that, the consume ability is useless.

Produce is where players place cards facedown on planets.

The game gets much deeper than that due to each card having special abilities. So each planet and each development has a special ability (though many also have the ability just to produce or consume) that comes into play during a certain phase of the game.

This makes for a LOT of strategy and differing ways to play, since all the various abilities can make for literally hundreds of different combinations of play styles. It makes for a very deep game...dependant of course that you draw the cards you need, as draws are random.

This makes the game more complex than a game of Puerto Rico or San Juan. This will be great for people who like the added complexity. It will be great for those with great memories to be able to learn what the different symbology means quickly. It will be terrible for those who like a more simple fare (such as Puerto Rico or San Juan or other games which are moderately heavy already as far as Euros go) or who can't remember what all the different symbols mean.

The depth and variability of the game makes this game score well in a later category, however it also means that it lowers the gameplay score as well, since this is a game that is very much a love it or leave it type game. If you like heavy card games with a lot of variability, then this is a game for you. If you like games like Magic the Gathering, but without having to buy random packs and such...you'll probably fall in love with this game. If you hate games like Magic, but love games like Poker, you might want to pass. If you love games like Texas Hold em, and are unsure whether you would like heavier card games...this could be a calculated risk.

Overall, the game itself rolls well, but can be rocky at parts due to questions on symbology, and tradeoffs that give it more depth in replacement for smoothness of flow and ease of play.

It scores a 6.

Personal Tilt - This game is an average game for me. It scores in the high averages, but I find that I'd rather play a game of Bridge or San Juan rather than this game. I know friends that are in love with this Race for the Galaxy game, but I find I'm not one of those. It's a nice game, but not one that really captures my fun factor. I think it has a lot of depth, and if I spent the time to learn some of the deeper strategies about it, I could actually enjoy it more. However the tradeoff for what I need to do to get there, as opposed to simply enjoying another game which is a little simpler (and I consider many wargames which are 100 or more pages in rules somewhat simpler if that gives you an idea of what I mean) or more direct in confrontation, I think I'd rather play another game. However, the game IS GOOD. It just doesn't tickle my fancy as the next great thing.

For me my personal tilt is that it's around an average game in my collection that I can enjoy playing now and then, but not one of my favorites.

Hence it scores a 6.

Replayability - This is where the game really shines. In fact, due to the depth and versitality of the cards, as well as variability of strategy, this game scores a perfect in the replayability area. If you like this game, and enjoy it's playstyle, you could probably play this game all night, and still yearn for more. This game has perfected a sense of replayability which I can only imagine is a gamer's dream. I can't really say more than, it has some of the best replayability I've seen. There's no rounding up, no simple it's close so we choose the closest score...it's right up at the perfect 10 level.

It scores a perfect 10.

Useability - This game is great in that it has a two player mode that comes with it. It also can be played with up to 5 players. However, our game didn't seem to have enough Victory chips for the points that went on the table if you so choose to play with 5 players. However, on the box it specifies that it is ONLY FOR 2-4 Players. I just note the 5 players, because it doesn't take much to allow 5 people to play. Once everyone knows how to play the game doesn't take much time either, and as I stated above, it's replayability is great. Hence it is very useable. Even those who don't like it probably could put up with 30 minutes prior to another game to play it for the sake of others. Hence it's a good useability score.

It scores an 8.

Overall the game's strenght lie in it's replayability, which stems from it's huge variety of cards, and hence the different ways to play, and to see it played. There can be a great depth of strategy in it, which makes it fun for those who are into that type of thing with cards.

However, poor presentation, which can lead to confusion at the table can stem it's gameplay at times. For those that love this type of game I expect they would rate it very high on their personal tilt, however those who don't like the game or just can't "Get" it, I expect they would rate it very low. Overall, I find it has it's strengths and weaknesses like any other game. In this instance they sort of balance each other out, to give this game an average score.

It's final score is a 6.

Which brings me back to tonight with the last game I just played, once again where my daughter insisted on playing. She still didn't seem to understand what she was doing and asked many times what she should do. I made suggestions, which she promptly ignored and then did her own thing. She seemed to get a lot of cheap planets which she put on the table, seemingly at random at first...up until she had about 7 of them with production and consume. Then she proceeded to produce and consume for Victory points as her only cards she played...every other round. That's ALL she did. She got upset at her Daddy because whilst she knew exactly what she was going to put down (it took her all of around 2 seconds to play her cards) Daddy would take a minute or so trying to figure out what he was doing.

Eventually, my friend got his 12th card placed (game lasts until all VP are taken or 12th card put on the table) and the game ended. I had focused on a military point type strategy where I had payed 6 points for a development which gave me VP at the end of the game for how much military power I possessed. I got 30 VP. My friend had a combination of several different things, and ended up with 35 VPs. My little daughter, despite her saying she had no idea what to do...got 38 VPs. I still can't believe she won.

On the plus side, before she went to bed tonight, she came up and gave me a hug and said "Daddy, I love you."

Ah well, the confusions in life of being a Dad. And she's only 3. I hear teenager years are a LOT worse. At least she's on track for being a gamer...though at this rate she's going to be trouncing her dad at games by the time she's 16.



(For reference, link to explanation of my game ratings http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2426690#2426690 )