Galaxy Trucker | BoardGameGeek

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Reviews:: Re: [Video Review] Basement Boardgamer Ep2: Galaxy Trucker

Gamer10150512 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:50:03 +0000

by Gamer10150512

Thanks for posting the updated archive.org link!

Awesome review!

New Image for Galaxy Trucker

The Warp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:57:41 +0000

by The Warp

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Using a Specialist (the little white space man is the Engineer- ability on the red card).

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Variants:: Re: Fix Tile Numbers Based on # Players and Ship

pzkrakz — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:42:12 +0000

by pzkrakz

unixrevolution wrote:
StormKnight wrote:
Well, if you just want to limit components based on number of players with only the base set and want numbers close to (not exact, but easy to work with at least):

Use all the tiles for 4 players.
Remove 15 tiles with 3 players.
Remove 30 tiles with 2 players.

I think the idea behind using the same tile mix for all the ships is that:
A) its a lot less hassle.
B) earlier ships should be easier to build.
C) Having all the tiles out with ship 1 gives you an idea of what's available when building the later ships, allowing more control.

I was thinking the same thing with regards to each round. Earlier ships are easier not just because of the smaller size requirement, but because your number of tiles is so much larger compared to the size of the ship, and the likelihood of finding what you need is higher.

More so than that, though, is the nature of randomly discarding tiles. What if you discard every engine tile? or all but say, 3?

That said, if you really want a challenge, I'm sure 1 tile per space would give it!

No thank you.

Thanks for the comments. I can understand the perspective on having earlier ships be easier to build in earlier rounds. I guess that I differ in opinion in that I do want more of a challenge.

What if you randomly discard all of one key component, such as thrusters? Well, it's unlikely, but doesn't seem any less interesting to me. What if one player happened to draw most of the engines and hoarded them, wouldn't that be a similar concern, albeit also unlikely?

Another interesting variant designed to increase scarcity of tiles might be to remove tiles that were destroyed during phase I and II transi (and III if playing IIIA). In this case players would know what's out, though the number of tiles available each game would be variable. Thematically I like this idea, since those connectors were lost in the void!

.. maybe a combination of the above two ideas: Start phase I with a fixed number of random tiles, and discard any that are destroyed. Then, in phase II, you add in another fixed number of tiles, and repeat for phase III an IV.

I'll try out some of these variants and add some notes as to what is fun or totally unworkable. Thanks again for the comments above.

New Image for Galaxy Trucker

red_gobbo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:39:20 +0000

by red_gobbo

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Little character added ;]

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Variants:: Re: Fix Tile Numbers Based on # Players and Ship

unixrevolution — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:22:48 +0000

by unixrevolution

StormKnight wrote:
Well, if you just want to limit components based on number of players with only the base set and want numbers close to (not exact, but easy to work with at least):

Use all the tiles for 4 players.
Remove 15 tiles with 3 players.
Remove 30 tiles with 2 players.

I think the idea behind using the same tile mix for all the ships is that:
A) its a lot less hassle.
B) earlier ships should be easier to build.
C) Having all the tiles out with ship 1 gives you an idea of what's available when building the later ships, allowing more control.

I was thinking the same thing with regards to each round. Earlier ships are easier not just because of the smaller size requirement, but because your number of tiles is so much larger compared to the size of the ship, and the likelihood of finding what you need is higher.

More so than that, though, is the nature of randomly discarding tiles. What if you discard every engine tile? or all but say, 3?

That said, if you really want a challenge, I'm sure 1 tile per space would give it!

No thank you.

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Variants:: Re: Fix Tile Numbers Based on # Players and Ship

StormKnight — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:20:52 +0000

by StormKnight

Well, if you just want to limit components based on number of players with only the base set and want numbers close to (not exact, but easy to work with at least):

Use all the tiles for 4 players.
Remove 15 tiles with 3 players.
Remove 30 tiles with 2 players.

I think the idea behind using the same tile mix for all the ships is that:
A) its a lot less hassle.
B) earlier ships should be easier to build.
C) Having all the tiles out with ship 1 gives you an idea of what's available when building the later ships, allowing more control.

That said, if you really want a challenge, I'm sure 1 tile per space would give it!

Thread: Galaxy Trucker:: Variants:: Fix Tile Numbers Based on # Players and Ship

pzkrakz — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:55:35 +0000

by pzkrakz

I've seen a few posts for 2p variants where tiles are removed, and posts like "Iron Man" that try to increase difficulty for experienced players, and posts for handicapping better players as well, but all that made me wonder if the game wouldn't just be better if there were simply a fixed number of random tiles that scales with the number of players?

I like many ideas of the expansion set, and maybe I should just get that for added challenge/complexity, but this game seems really great alone, without more fluff, with the one caveat that as you get better building the ships you face less problems.

I'm posting this to solicit input from more experienced players as to how many tiles they would recommend playing with depending on the number of players. A simple approach would be to play each round with a total number of tiles equivalent to the total squares on all player's ships (thus in a 4p phase III round all 144 tiles would be used).

I think the game is brilliant, but it just seems like a simple tile-limiting fix will work much better than the expansion or other suggested variants in order to increase challenge with minimal added complexity.

I appreciate any suggestions as to the number of tiles per players to play with depending on (i) the number of players and (ii) the specific ship being built.

Review: Galaxy Trucker:: Blowing things up - sometimes even intentionally...

huber — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:47:16 +0000

by huber

This review originally appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Gamers Alliance Report. It has received minor editing for BGG.

Also - please note that the pictures included are from BGG; my photography skills can't generate such nice pictures.

Galaxy Trucker

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Designed by Vlaada Chvátil and published by Czech Games Edition and Rio Grande Games

The Game

With the release of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization, the arrival of Czech games and designer Vlaada Chvátil onto the scene was underway. While a few Czech games, such as Course de la Paix, had received some attention previously, and Chvátil’s own Prophecy was fairly well received, it took the Sid Meier’s Civilization-inspired Through the Ages for Czech boardgame design to really take off. As a result, there was significant interest in the 2007 releases of both Czech Games Edition and Czech Board Games, but most particularly in Chvátil’s 2007 design, Galaxy Trucker.

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But there was also some trepidation when descriptions of the game started to come out; it sounded like a far lighter game than Through the Ages and incorporated simultaneous play, not the most popular of mechanisms. Further, initial reports were definitely mixed. Still, given the popularity of Through the Ages, I was happy to order it sight unseen. So just what did I get?

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Galaxy Trucker contains a plethora of components: 8 player boards (for up to four players – each player uses one board for the first two rounds, and a different board for the third round), nice plastic astronauts, aliens, batteries, and ships, wood cubes to represent the goods, and thick cardboard tiles for the spaceship components and money. The basic game is fairly straight forward: all players simultaneously build their spaceships for the round, drawing from a common pile of crew modules, laser cannons, engines, shields, batteries (to power the shields and the better cannons and engines), storage nodules, connectors, and other components. Once the first player completes her ship, other players have a fixed amount of time to complete their ships, and then the adventure begins.

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Between 8 and 16 adventure cards, depending upon the round, are revealed and dealt with one at a time. These can be positive events, such as a planet with lots of goods to pick up for delivery, or negative events, such as pirates or meteor storms. Sometimes there is just open space to blast through. Many events can cause damage to spaceships, sometimes even destroying them entirely. Players who survive the adventure receive full payment for any goods they deliver as well as various bonuses. Galactic credits are the measure of each player; the player with the greatest balance after the third round wins.

Reactions

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Many people have compared Galaxy Trucker to Factory Fun and with some reason; both games involve the rapid selection of tiles and provide a puzzle element in the proper connection of the tiles. However, there the similarities end; Factory Fun is primarily a multi-player solitaire game where most of the game is played without time pressure where Galaxy Trucker is primarily a multiplayer space adventure and race game with more than half of the game played in a rush. Furthermore, a significant portion of Galaxy Trucker’s appeal is the experience provided. The adventures definitely favor the well prepared but a lot of the fun is in watching ships fall apart – or come close to doing so. Because of the nature of the negative events, once a ship starts to sustain damage, it’s more susceptible to future damage. It’s not uncommon, particularly with players new to the game, for ships not to finish the adventure.

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And frankly, this is FUN. The game definitely gives players the desire to do better the next time – always a good feature – but the wild, sometime out-of-control nature of the adventure is ideal for helping players enjoy themselves, regardless of the outcome.

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The sense of fun is further amplified by the rules. Most rule books – OK, most good rule books – clearly describe the game in such a manner as a new player can learn to play. The rules for Galaxy Trucker do this and far more. In addition to being well organized, the rules are full of game-related jokes. In addition, the rules are set up to teach the game in stages, often a useful method for learning a game if the players aren’t too picky about not understanding everything from the start. As a result of these two factors, Galaxy Trucker is the only game I know well that I teach by reading the rules to the new players.

One issue with the game is that with experience, players tend to get better and better at building ships, often resulting in the adventures being less damaging and, unfortunately, detracting from the fun as a result. To counter this, Czech Games Edition released Galaxy Trucker: Rough Road Ahead, originally as a free print-and-play expansion on their web site, and later as one component of Galaxy Trucker: The Big Expansion. This adds additional elements to each adventure. Some of these are reasonably easy to deal with (faulty batteries, for example, simply require bringing extra batteries or minimizing items using them) but, in combination, the events often lead to deadly or near-deadly adventures, bringing the uncertainty back in to the game.

Conclusions

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Galaxy Trucker is not an inexpensive game but the components are nice enough as to take some of the sting out of the price. But it’s a surprising next step for Chvatil after the success of Through the Ages. While a designer’s games usually tend to cover different ground, there usually is some common thread among the games but Through the Ages is a long, complex economic game while Galaxy Trucker is a turnless, light romp. From my perspective, this is a good thing. It’s refreshing to see a designer make such a radical departure from success and thrilling to see him succeed.

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Galaxy Trucker has reached a dozen plays for me which has relieved one of my biggest concerns about the game: replayability. Even after a dozen plays, the game still feels fresh and the expansion helps to add back in the sense of recklessness, regardless of the level of experience of the players. But it’s definitely not a game for everyone.

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There are two main, legitimate objections I’ve heard to the game. The first is from those who dislike the frantic ship building. This definitely isn’t for everyone; there are few games with a really comparable experience, though the rush for tiles in Factory Fun gives a very limited taste of the same feel. The other primary reservation voiced about the game is the lack of strategic options during the adventure. There is truth to this. There are decisions around the use of batteries and when to pass on goods in order to take the lead, but the game is not rich with strategic choices. Still, a number of people who don’t like experience games (and presumably wouldn’t care for Galaxy Trucker, as a result) are fond of it and some fans of experience games don’t care for it, again making it difficult to judge whether or not this is likely to be an issue without trying the game. Given the price, trying Galaxy Trucker before buying it is a reasonable choice in any event. It’s definitely best to play with a full complement of four players so that there’s real competition for the tiles.

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But most importantly, it’s definitely worth sticking through. I didn’t think much of the game after the first round of my first game and was still undecided through the second round. After the third round, however, I was sold.

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Reviews:: Re: [Video Review] Basement Boardgamer Ep2: Galaxy Trucker

Admiral Weekender — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:27:34 +0000

by Admiral Weekender

Video reviews are always appreciated! Consider it enjoyed! :D

Even though the Archive.org link in your post isn't doing so well, I was still able to grab the file from http://www.archive.org/details/BasementBoardgamer_EP2_Galaxy... :thumbsup:

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Rules:: Re: Giving up when last ship left???

Jimmer — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:33:10 +0000

by Jimmer

I'm in favor of "you have to finish the run", but an interesting question comes up...Combat Zone. Are you the least (tied for least) in all things? If so, tough love!

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Reviews:: Re: A light review of Galaxy Trucker.

tibbs2 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:01:07 +0000

by tibbs2

Good review but there's less luck than you think. Don't forget you can look at two thirds of the cards when you build your ship so you know what's coming.

I rarely take ship damage anymore,but that's where the Galaxy Trucker: The Big Expansion comes into play.

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Reviews:: Re: A light review of Galaxy Trucker.

middleclassjoe — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:49:49 +0000

by middleclassjoe

Ha! We did do Nerf Russian Roulette a few months ago.

New Image for Galaxy Trucker

Guantanamo — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:33:32 +0000

by Guantanamo

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Dimitri, Pat, Mike and Wally play at Mike's Mini Meet VII

Reply: Galaxy Trucker:: Reviews:: Re: A light review of Galaxy Trucker.

dysjunct — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:45:54 +0000

by dysjunct

You and Jessi should review Shocking Roulette.

Review: Galaxy Trucker:: A light review of Galaxy Trucker.

middleclassjoe — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:32:09 +0000

by middleclassjoe

This is a review that I co-wrote as part of a monthy column, Bored? Games!, which appears in The Fresno Undercurrent, a local monthly newspaper. This particular review ran last year. Our reviews tend to be absurd, but this one almost had it's head on straight.

Galaxy Trucker
[removed: designer, publisher info for posting on BGG]

Jessi: Galaxy Trucker is a two-phase sci fi game. In the first phase, players simultaneously build their spaceships by arranging pieces on a bingo-board-ish “chassis,” if you will. In the second phase, the flight phase, you see how well your ship holds up against the treachery of your journey.

Joe: This game is nothing like most of the light strategy games that I tend to enjoy. In those games, you generally find that you reap what you sow. In other words, put a good strategy into play and it will tend to pay off with a good showing, put a bad strategy into play and, well... not so much. Galaxy Trucker is a lot more chaotic, but it's a fun chaos.

Jessi: Some of the chaos revolves around the general bizarreness of the game. As you build your space ship, you’re scrambling for engines, cargo areas, batteries, and alien life support systems (what is a space ship without alien life support, right?), trying to snatch the pieces you need before your opponents grab them in a frenzied scramble. I also like the visual elements to the game, wherein you have to make sure the pieces you're using actually connect so your space ship doesn't break apart. So you're strategizing a good space ship, but you're also trying to build it quickly.

Joe: Often I found my priority moving from "building a good ship" to just "building a ship." Parts tiles can get sparse quickly. This was especially evident in four player games where competition for tiles was much more intense.

Jessi: I enjoyed the three-player game better than the four-player game for that very reason.

Joe: After you've slapped together your excuse for an interstellar freighter, you're off to make some money! Not so fast though, first you've got to deal with pirates, smugglers, saboteurs, and asteroids all the while hoping that some remnant of your ship makes it home with at least a few loads of cargo. It's brutal.

Jessi: This part can feel really random as it depends more on luck than your "ship building skills." Depending on the card you flip over the course of your flight, you might have to roll the dice to see where asteroids hit your ship, you may have to decide if it's worth falling behind your opponents when you take one valuable cargo, and you curse when you loose that cargo to pirates. The good news is that even though the first person to finish their ship will start the flight in the lead, they are unlikely to keep the lead.

To me, Galaxy Trucker's balance between strategy and dumb luck is a huge part of its charm, and I think these elements are well suited to the sci fi genre. You can't control every moment in the game, but there are plenty of other games that allow for high strategy mechanisms. Galaxy Trucker seems fairly unique to me. That said, I've seen other people get frustrated with it as they wish they were playing something, shall we say, more organized?

Joe: I'd have to agree with you on all points. If you're looking for something where the outcome is tied solely to your strategic and tactical decisions then this game is NOT for you. If, on the other hand, you’re just looking for a fun romp through space and don’t mind laughing at your own misfortunes then you might look to pick this one up.

New Image for Galaxy Trucker

firstfletch — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:13:52 +0000

by firstfletch

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She wins this one!

New Image for Galaxy Trucker

firstfletch — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:02:36 +0000

by firstfletch

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2-player game with wife.

New Image for Galaxy Trucker

CobberFootballer — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:14:27 +0000

by CobberFootballer

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These ladies are ready to construct some space-worthy vessels.