No single game scratches all itches. When I was single, I loved heading over to my buddy Mike's apartment. We'd get together with a few other guys and play Advanced Civ or Merchant of Venus or one of his many other games. But it was usually something epic, where you either built some big empire or blew the crap out of the other guy's big stuff. (in the case of Merchant of Venus, you became filthy rich)

Times are different for me now. I'm married with kids and don't have the massive amount of time I used to. But I still have certain itches and one of those is "building stuff." And some of the games I own now do have this mechanic: Settlers of Catan, Carcassone and now, most recently, Agricola.

Race for the Galaxy scratches my "build an empire" itch while doing two other things that are really great:

1. It's very portable (just cards and chits)
2. It's not very long to play

Just in case you're reading this review before learning anything else about the game, a brief overview of how it plays might help. Basically, 2-4 players are competing to build the best galactic empire. They do this by laying out cards that represent planets and developments in this empire. Some of these planets and developments have the ability to produce "goods", which can be consumed for victory points or more cards (or some really funky other effects). Cards serve multiple roles in the game – they can be the actual item displayed on them, they can be a face-down good that has been produced on a planet or they can be discarded as money to place other planets or devs. Every turn, each player secretly selects an activity to perform from 7 options in their hand. Each player gets to perform all selected activities, with a bonus for players that are performing the activity that they picked. For instance, if Joe picks "Settle" and Jane picks "Produce", both players can place a world from their hand by paying the cost in cards. But Joe gets to draw a card as a bonus. In "Produce", both player's normal worlds will produce goods, but Jane also gets to place 1 good on what's called a "windfall world", which are worlds that come into play with a good but then normally don't produce. The game ends when one player has played 12 cards to the table or when one player has depleted the pile of victory point chits. Then scores are totaled based on collected chits, point values for planets and developments and special scores for "6 point devs". (think things like New Galactic Order or Merchant Guild – empire sweeping developments that are worth points based on other cards you've played)

Race is fairly easy to learn, with a few caveats. The basic mechanics of drawing cards, placing planets and devs and producing goods are easy. Consuming and trading goods takes some extra thought, but aren't that hard once they are demonstrated. What tends to be harder for new players:

1. There are definitely card combinations that players new to the game won't understand – at least until a more experienced player uses these combos to run away with the game.
2. The cards use a series of icons to represent how powers work. These icons are wonderful…once you've got a few games under your belt. For beginners, they can be a touch intimidating.
3. Player interaction is based on watching what your opponents are doing and trying to guess their actions…and picking your actions to best "leech" off of their choices. Again, not something that comes naturally.

Now, to be honest, many of these issues aren't as bad as they sound when one realizes that the game is really meant to last somewhere between 8 to a dozen turns. Doing a few "throwaway games" or playing with cards in hand face up to teach is not a huge waste of a gaming session.

I have run a very successful "gaming lunch" at work, where I taught 4 of my co-workers to play while I coached them. Since then, I've played one on one and it's proving to be quite popular. It's my hope that as I scratch my itch, I can show other people how much fun this hobby can be.

For some time invested in learning the system, Race for the Galaxy rewards players with a quick yet deeply involved experience. We always walk away from our games talking about how combinations worked or didn't work and how we'll figure out a better way next time. To me, that's a winner.