I try to pass along my interests to my children, but sometimes it works the other way too. My third child, J-J, loves outer space. He is absolutely fascinated with the planets and at 5 and a half years old has the order of them memorized and facts about each of them. Because of that I’m always eager to play outer space themed games with him. So, of course, I signed up to preview Empty Space coming to Kickstarter. Here we go!
Empty Space
Designer: Peter Collins (and family)
Gameplay:
The goal is to be the first player with both a space probe and rocket on a discovered Exoplanet.
The first thing to note is that you can set up the 28 cards in any pattern to play the game. If you want a 7×4 rectangle, then do it. If you want to explore space in a kind of pixelated oval shape, make it happen. If you need to make outer space look like a giant letter J because your son said so, then we can do that too. You’ll place the rest of the space cards next to this area to make up your deck. Flip the top two face-up.
After your space is set up just the way you want it, begin the game. You only have two options of what to do on your turn: Research or Explore.
If you choose Research, you will pick up two cards. You can choose one of the face-up cards next to the deck, replacing it with a card from the deck. Or you can choose a face-down card from the deck itself. The next step in Research is to play cards. Playing cards are your way of taking actions. Depending on what you play, you can buy a space probe or rocket (this is how you will move and explore space), reveal the universe (to look at the face down cards in the universe), change the universe (remove a revealed card in the universe and place a card from your hand in its place), or play a Black Hole to effectively remove an already revealed card from play.
After you are done playing cards, you must discard to have no more than 4 cards in your hand at the end of your turn.
If you choose Explore, you can play cads as described above. However, after that you then get to move your probe or rocket. You can move on to cards that share your token color for free. However, if you want to move on to a space that is not your color, you must discard a card of that color to do so. There are wild cards that any player may move to for free.
You can attempt to move on to an unrevealed card. Immediately flip it over, and if you do not have the needed color to discard or it is a Black Hole, your probe/rocket is immediately destroyed.
And that’s it. The game mostly has two phases. The first phase has players all just casually exploring the universe with Research and Explore Actions. The next phase begins when the Exoplanet is discovered. It then becomes a race to get your probe and rocket to the Exoplanet first.
Theme:
There isn’t much to say about the theme of this one. The cards look great with images of various planets and galaxies. The rocket tokens are fun.
The wild cards I mentioned earlier are represented by various Apollo missions, showcasing those shuttles on the cards. That’s a nice touch that can be used as a teaching element.
For parents:
I’m not sure how large the probe and rocket tokens will be in the final production copy, but it’s probably best to not let little ones get a hold of them. They could be choking hazards.
This is absolutely a family game. It’s independent of language. Each card does have a title of what’s pictured, but to play the game, no reading is needed. You’re looking at the colors of the cards in the universe, the colors of the cards in your hand, and figuring out how to move through space. That’s a win in my book.
Being able to be creative with the game’s setup is a lot more fun and interactive with children that you would expect. Telling a child that they can CHOOSE how the cards are set up to play the game gets them excited right out of the gate. I was really surprised with how much fun that would be, and it’s absolutely a unique feature of this game.
There are no points to add up at the end. There’s a clear cut winner. And the game is over in about 20-30 minutes. It’s short enough that no one really loses interest, staying engaged until the end.
Final Thoughts:
This isn’t really a game for the adult game night. There’s a little too much randomness in what cards show up. If you’re playing the blue token, and your cards are just not coming up, you’re spending more cards to move your probe and rocket around. Which means you’re not having as many cards in your hand to play and take actions. With kids, luck and randomness usually add to the whole gaming experience. I like gaming with my peers to be a bit more based on skill an tactics.
That sounds like a knock on the game, and it really isn’t. This game thrives in a family game night setting with young gamers. The kids love setting up the universe how they see fit, and they really take ownership over their color while moving around the board. There’s also a solo mode. While this is becoming the norm in more and more board games. I’ll never take it for granted. I love having alternate solo modes for games.
Games that are quick to set up, easy to teach, and can be playing within minutes of opening the box are perfect for my family right now. That’s a niche that I feel like I can’t have enough of. Maybe someday we will play the games with hours of gameplay and month-long campaigns. Right now, we don’t always have hours to play games before bedtime.
Empty Space is a great fit for our family. Check it out on Kickstarter!
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