tom-le-termite
United States
ft lauderdale
Florida
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Galaxy trucker is a game that surprised me by the fact that I wasn't expecting to ever play a game like this. Although I was first sceptical after going through the rules, I finally found out that fun only matters.
Original - checked
fun - checked.
So, In Galaxy trucker, you are a space compagny that is going to build a spaceship and send it through space to deliver stuff (yeah, stuff, as we don't really know what we deliver in fact, but it doesn't matter, it does not impact the game concept).
The game has 2 main phases:
1-Spaceship construction.
So here you are, with your board in front of you, and a pile of faced-down tiles on the center of the table. Take a tile, look at it, and try to start the structure of your ship. ahah, too easy you will tell me. But not in fact: This phase is TIMED!!!! AHAH! Now, things changed: you are all stressed out to try to build your ship and you can be quite suprised at the end when you realize that your ship is just an ugly meatloaf. Tiles vary in type and function, so you can try to have more guns, more shield, more engine, more crew, a few aliens, batteries... all is good to update your space-junk into a superior-technological-war-machine.
And you may need it... because as you will see, space can be extremly dangerous.
It is important to also say that during this phase, 2 main rules will make the game more interactive.
-If you pick a tile you don't like, just put it back into the common pile, but face up! so your opponent can actually see it and pick it directly if they are interested.
-you can have a look at some of the event cards if you take the time to (instead of focusig on building your spaceship). it is kind of looking intothe futur... and then trying to update your ship with what you may need for the coming journey.
time is up! tadaaaam, all players have their highteck-junklike spaceship ready. we can finally all take off and go to space.
2-The space journey.
Event cards are now shuffled, and flipped one by one. Each event cards will bring despair or joy to each of the player. Meteorites zone, space pirates, abandoned spaceship...
Then, depending of the condition of each ship, things happen. You only have 3 gun? haha! pirates enslave half of your crew!!. You only have 4 engine??? tssss how can you avoid that war zone!!! you get hit and loose a big chunk of your ship! (niark niark!)... No shield at all? oups... Meteorites aren't fait with your ship either...
Life is dangerous in space...
If lucky, you may finally reach your destination planet, but usually, not much left on your ship. huhu.
-game ends:
The game has 3 rounds (so 3 ships to build and 3 different journey). the first round is like a trial: small ship, short time to build. then the second round gives you more time and more possibility for a bigger ship. finally, the 3rd round give you the opportunity to create a big and complexe spaceship, but be aware: the last journey is deadly!!! and don't ever think you may land on your destination into one single piece!
Then, you get paid, depening on the time it took you to arrive, the aspect of your -used-to-be-called-spaceship-, the cargo you may have picked up in your way... and the one with more money at the end of the 3 rounds wins the game.
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Galaxy trucker is just like an UFO in the gaming landscape. The timed-puzzle phase is fun and original, then it is sometime very chaotic during the journey as you don't necessarly have control of your ship once you are in space (sabottage!!! ahah!!!), but this is, in fact, the quality of the game: It is very fun to watch your opponents loosing the pieces of their spaceship one by one!, hoping that yours will last a little longer (huhu).
These merciless succession of events confirmed me two things:
-Space is hyper-mega-ultra-dangerous!
-Galaxy trucker is really, really fun!
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Mark Haberman
United States
Painesville
Ohio
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You will discover that the voyage is less random as you play the game more and get better at it. Whether this makes it more fun for you or not it another question (it does for me).
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tom-le-termite
United States
ft lauderdale
Florida
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I believe you on that point: learning how to use your time right during the construction will be a key factor to avoid disasters. As I don't own the game, I don't know When will be migh next session, so i cannot say about this limiting the fun...
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Scott Everts
United States
Foothill Ranch
California
MITCHELL!!!
Push the button, Frank!
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Nice review! I just got my copy from Funagain yesterday. I love the rulebook. It was so funny, very good humor. And the components are great. The game just looks like so much fun.
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Gabe Alvaro
United States
Berkeley
California
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habermanm wrote: You will discover that the voyage is less random as you play the game more and get better at it. Whether this makes it more fun for you or not it another question (it does for me).
Agree. This is the one thing I'm hoping more people find out about this game. When you first play it feels random mainly because you don't know what can happen to you. After you've played it a bit, you know what can happen because you learn the cards. And when you consider you can also look at the cards while building, it should be very worth it to take a quick look to help guide your building.
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