Galaxy Trucker has a very attractive theme — the players are space-age truckers down on their luck, so they have to build the ships they’ll be piloting for their deliveries. However, even without that theme, it would have attracted attention, because of its designer: Vlaada Chvatil, fresh from his IGA win for his brilliant Through the Ages. Needless to say, this is a very different kind of game than TtA, which makes the package even more intriguing.

Galaxy Trucker is a real-time delivery space game, so the obvious parallel is last year’s Space Dealer. Actually, it has next to nothing in common with that game. If you’re looking for a comparison, Factory Fun is a closer one, but this design really does have a unique feel.

The game consists of three rounds and each round is composed of two parts. In the first part, the players use tiles to simultaneously construct their ships. In the second part, the ships encounter both good and bad events to see how well they fare. The object is to earn the most space credits over the course of the three flights.

In the first part of each round, the tiles are spread out face down and the players will grab them one at a time to see if they want to add them to their ship. There are different types of connectors on each tile side and they all have to match up (like the tiles in Carcassonne). This tends to be the major complication, but you also have a limited amount of space and there’s all sorts of features you’d like to include in your ships. Different tile types include cabins for crew, engines for speed (and for eluding any bad guys you encounter), cannons to defend yourself against the aforementioned bad guys, shields for protection against meteors, batteries for powering up the three previous items, and cargo holds for toting around the goods you’ll be selling at your destination. Cramming all of these in sufficient numbers in your ship while also dealing with the connection issues is a genuine challenge.

Complicating this, of course, is the fact that you’re in a race with your opponents to get your ship finished first. Those who tense up when time pressure is involved shouldn’t be overly concerned. The game does use an egg timer (I wonder if anyone actually uses these to time eggs anymore), but the final flip of the timer can only begin after one of the players has finished constructing his ship. So if all of the players are struggling a bit, there won’t be too much time pressure to get a reasonable ship built. Of course, as the players get better, time will become more of a factor, because you really do want to be as close to the front of the line as possible. But Chvatil’s method of dealing with the real-time aspect is a very nice compromise between moving things along and not making people crazy with an absolute time limit and it works very well here.

There’s yet another way of spending your time during this portion of the turn, but first let me describe how the flights are conducted. A small number of cards (8, 12, and 16, for the three rounds) is dealt out. These are exposed one at a time and the effects of each one carried out. The way the players built their ships will determine how much they can take advantage of the good events and how severely they are trashed by the bad ones.

What’s nice, though, is that each player can partially review what these cards will be as they’re building their ships. Most of the cards that will be used are available for the players to look at during the first portion of the round. The problem, of course, is that this takes time and your opponents are merrily adding tiles to their vehicles while you’re checking out future events. It’s another nice balance to be considered.

There’s about a dozen different types of cards and their effects are varied. You can land on planets and pick up goods which can be sold for space credits should you make it to your destination. Each of these cards has multiple planets listed and the player in the lead (originally, the one who finished building their ship first) gets first pick. There are also opportunities for picking up fast cash if you have sufficient crew. But space is a wild and bitchy place, so there’s also meteors to dodge, smugglers to swipe your cargo, slavers to steal your crew, and pirates to battle. The ability of your ship to use its shields, cannons, and engines effectively determines whether you get smacked or whether you can actually make a profit out of these travails.

Many of these eeevil cards will send projectiles at the tiles of your ship (where exactly they will hit is determined randomly, but they affect all the players the same). If you can’t defend against these, the first tile they hit gets blown away. Of course, if this tile was connecting other tiles to the rest of your ship, you’ll be losing multiple tiles. Poorly constructed ships will soon resemble Swiss cheese, much to the delight of your opponents.

If you manage to hang on and survive all the cards of the trip, there are rewards. Each finishing player gets a cash bonus, with the lead players getting the most (several of the cards can affect the players’ relative positions, so the leader at the start won’t necessarily be the one to pick up the biggest prize). Any goods you’ve gathered can be sold—those who didn’t make it to the end still get half price for their goods. Unfortunately, you also lose money for all the tiles you lost off the ship (up to a set limit), so you’re not even guaranteed a profit. But no one ever said being a space trucker was the way to riches. That’s a ten-forward, good buddy.

After each round, all the tiles are returned to the middle of the board, new adventure cards are dealt out, and we start all over again. There are three different mats for the three rounds, with the maximum size of the ships increasing with each round. At the end of our three galactic convoys, we all total up our space credits and the biggest chunk of change wins.

Galaxy Trucker is one of those rare games that are just as much fun when you’re getting hammered as when you’re doing well. Even without a huge amount of time pressure, building your ship can be a bewildering experience at first. I mean, the rules are simple enough and you know what you want to do, but trying to construct a balanced ship while getting the connections right is a real challenge. It’s far too easy to find a whole section of potential growth cordoned off because of careless building. Or maybe you’ve filled up all your spaces, but were never able to squeeze more than one battery tile in, severely limiting your actions during the flight. Because of the real-time aspect, what could be a frustrating experience is instead a frantic and fun one. You’re cursing while you look for the perfect tile, but you’re laughing while you’re doing it.

And if you think that was crazy, wait until you send your makeshift vessel to infinity and beyond. When those meteors start zooming in and the space pirates begin using you for target practice, it can really get hysterical. The location of these strikes is determined by a dice roll, so there’s always the chance that they’ll miss you or hit a well protected spot. But when the one weak spot gets clobbered (as it invariably does), it’s just plain funny to see crucial parts of your ship float away. Needless to say, on the very next card, those are the very components you needed to prevent yet more losses. It’s just a lot of fun.

As you get more experienced, you learn to build better and these disasters are replaced with more successful play. At this point, I suspect that the time factor comes into play. Yes, I can now build an effective, balanced ship, but if my opponents can do it just as well in half the time, I’ll still be sucking hard vacuum. It remains to be seen what the replayability factor of this game is, but given the variety of adventure cards and the number of levels of play I’ve already identified, I see no reason to think this will be a problem.

I’ve played twice (with four and two players) and kibitzed on another game. In my first contest, with three other newbies, many mistakes were made and the hilarity was great. It didn’t help that we encountered an unusually high number of harsh cards, although in a way, that only added to the fun. The winning score was one space credit — and we were very happy that one of us actually finished in the black! In the four-player game I observed, the cards were kinder and the winning score was in the seventies, but the players enjoyed it just as much. Finally, in my two-player game, I really saw the value of experience. There were still some frantic moments, but I was doing much better with the building and won with 96 credits! But in future games, I’m sure I’ll have to be just as efficient in a shorter period of time.

It’s important to recognize what this game is not. It is not a high strategy design. You can try to plan for eventualities, but that’s limited by the tiles you reveal and the speed of your fellow players. There’s a good deal of skill in the building, but your fate also rests greatly on the cards that are dealt and the luck of the dice. It’s not a game you should take too seriously, but it’s hardly a piece of fluff either. It successfully combines real-time mechanics, planning, and the hilarity of a chaotic experience game in one unusual and very approachable package. Is it as good as Through the Ages? Of course not, but in its own way, this is just as audacious an undertaking and Chvatil has pulled it off remarkably well.

The main reason CGE split off from Czech Board Games (the company that produced Through the Ages) was to publish more professionally produced games. Since I’ve only seen a prototype, I can’t say how completely successful this will be, but I certainly liked what I saw. I’m pretty sure the prototype uses the art from the final version and it looks very nice. Of much more significance, the art on the tiles is easily distinguishable (even from across the table) while still resembling the items being portrayed. So the drawings assist with the gameplay and the final product kind of looks like a spaceship. A very nice job by Filip Murmak, who was also responsible for the solid artwork in Through the Ages. The cards, the maps, the displays: all are both functional and quite attractive. Then there’s the rulebook, which presents all the rules clearly, is easy to read, and is very funny. Mixing information and humor is tough enough, but to maintain it through a translation process is almost miraculous. Kudos to Chvatil (who I believe wrote the rules) and translator Jason Holt for a job very well done.

Galaxy Trucker is about as far removed from Through the Ages as you can imagine, but there are still some telltale indications that they come from the same hand. Both games are very well balanced and playtested. In both, there’s a lot you want to accomplish, but getting it all done takes skill and experience. And both work outside the usual gaming envelope, giving them an innovative and unique feel. Clearly, Chvatil isn’t afraid to take on big challenges. He’s taken us back into antiquity and forward into outer space. Who knows where this talented designer will take us with his next game?

What a wonderful review! I can't believe no one has replied! I've been considering getting this game for a while to fill that laugh-till-your-sides-split niche.

Thanks again for a wonderful review!