Colony building comes in all shapes and sizes in the gaming world. Sometimes you are building up your best farm community or trying to populate the planet of Mars. There are people, aliens and animals and everything in-between creating these areas you are looking to build up. Today we are on the frozen satellite moon of Jupiter Europa. You and your fellow explorers are trying to populate and stabilize the best colony you can, using the teeming oceans full of life and the resources in them. So let’s take a look at this game and see what kind of explorers we are!
The Artemis Project is designed by Daryl Chow and Daniel Rocchi. It is or 1-5 players and plays in 60-75 mins. It is published by Grand Gamers Guild.
Gameplay
The theme of the game as I mentioned is colony building. You and others are trying to build the most successful colony using resources that you harvest to construct buildings and employ and train colonists to help you go out on expeditions. Players will gain victory points based on accomplishments throughout the game and the highest total points at the end wins!
Each player will start with a player mat with their player markers and 5 dice. Supplies are assigned to each player as well. The main board is set up with piles of the different resources around the board and groups of each colonists are made. A pile of Building tiles, Event cards and the Expedition deck are made as well.
The game is made up of three different phases that repeat over 6 rounds. The Phases are the Placement, Resolution and Upkeep Phase.
In the Placement Phase players will take their rolled dice and and starting clockwise select and place one die in one of the 7 regions. Toolkits may be spent to alter your dice rolls also. These areas you place them is where most of the actions in the game occur. They are:
1-Basecamp. Here players compete to earn Expedition badges and the rewards on the Expedition Cards.
2-Vents. The Exposure mechanism here has players placing their dice to the right of all dice equal to or lower than their die. The number indicates how much Energy you will take.
3-Quarry. Again the Exposure mechanism is used to harvest minerals to construct buildings with.
4-Gantry. Players will bid with their dice on buildings they wish to construct. The highest will get the contract. You don’t need the energy when you place the die but but you do need it by the time you get to this phase.
5-Doorstep. Here players will use the Exposure mechanism again to recruit colonists at the Doorstep at a cost of two energy a piece. You don’t need the energy when you place the die but but you do need it by the time you get to this phase.
6. Academy. This is where training of colonists can occur into other roles. The die number determined what the colonist you place there will become.
7-Outfitter. Here this happens immediately when chosen. You immediately gain the amount of Toolkits shown on the display. There is no limit to the dice that can be sent here in a phase.
Next the Resolution Phase is where the Event and the 6 Regions will resolve. These will occur as follows:
The Event-The card is read and you follow the instructions on it.
1-Basecamp. Each Expedition card is resolved separately. If the dice total is under the difficulty, it fails. If it is equal or over it succeeds and players receive rewards based on the values of the dice they have there. Any players who receive nothing gain one space on the relief track.
2-Vents. The leftmost die begins and takes Energy from the Vents equal to their die value. This proceeds right until there is nothing left to take. Any players who receive nothing gain one space on the relief track.
3-Quarry. This resolves the same as the Vents but here players will get Minerals.
4-Gantry. Each building is resolved separately. The highest valued die can buy it for Minerals. The next highest has the option if they pass. Any players who are outbid gain one space on the relief track.
5. Doorstep. Here players will be able to spend two Energy per colonist to claim from the Doorstep up to the number of their dice value. This is resolved again from the left to the right. Any players who receive nothing gain one space on the relief track.
6. Academy. Each player with a die in the Academy will discard the spent colonist and upgrade it to the colonist that matches the number spent from the Academy supply.
The Relief track as mentioned above will allow you to gain rewards throughout the game.
Finally in the Upkeep Phase players will perform the following tasks in order:
1-One Move/Swap. Each player is able to move or swap 1 colonist into or out of buildings and the Shelter.
2-Activate Fully-Staffed Buildings. Ocean buildings with the proper amount of colonists will trigger and benefits are gained here.
3-Pay Energy for Colonists in your Shelters. For each colonists in your Shelters you must pay 1 Energy to keep them warm. Any you cannot keep warm you must discard from the game.
4-Refresh the Game Board. Each region is refreshed for the next round.
5-Chose a new first player. The player with the least amount of resources chooses who is the starting player for the next round. Then a new round will begin.
After the sixth round is complete, finally scores are determined. Players add all VP into their score based on end game scoring and the highest score wins!
Impressions
What could be better:
Symbology. Player aides or something easy to break down the symbology would really help speed up parts of the game. We could find the info, it just took some time to get there.
Speed. The game has the structure that it could be something that plays quick but at the five player count it slows down a bit more than I would like to, even with alternating turns by players for dice placement.
What I liked:
Dice placement. I enjoy dice in a game and this one does dice placement well. No matter what your rolls you could strategically find ways to use them. The key was managing them the right way to come out on top in each area as best you could.
Art. I like the design and art of this game. The theme is fun and makes sense through the gameplay and it looks good on the table. Even the components look good and really help pop the game when it is all set up.
Overall
The Artemis Project is a dice placement game that really hits the mark for worker placement and set collection gameplay. I really enjoyed the smooth nature of the game through the rounds and determining how and when to use your dice was a challenge that I appreciated for how to plan ahead. The game does require you to think on the spot as you roll your dice each round, but you definitely need to plan ahead as you place them.
There is a bit of take-that against other players as you can squeeze them out of certain resources or buildings or colonists. It is enough that it creates tension and gotcha moves for player interactions that keep the game moving and engaging. I like a game that gives me player interaction but doesn’t make combat/aggressive play the focus. This one hits on that well.
The game is not a light game, it weighs in on bgg as a 2.84/5 so there is complexity to it. It isn’t going to be the hardest game you’ve ever tried but it is likely not going to be as easy with younger/casual gamers. I think they will figure out how to roll and place dice but the strategy and moves behind when and where to place dice and how to advance your gameplay will be the challenging part for that group.
Overall I would highly recommend this one for anyone looking for some dice rolling and worker placement mixed together to push into set collection with a good mix of player interactions. It is smooth, pretty and easily one of the better worker placement games I have played in quite some time. Make sure to check out The Artemis Project today!
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