The final frontier. The place where trekking and wars and everything else in-between occurs. This dark, seemingly unending location we so affectionally refer to as space. Space is where we send our heroic explorers searching this largely unexplored world, boldly going where no men or women have gone before. There are many games that have taken the plunge into the dark depths of space, and today we are going to look at one that seeks to do the same.
Space Explorers is published by 25th Century Games and is designed by Yuri Zhuravlev. It is for 2-4 players and plays in approximately 30 minutes.
The goal of Space Explorers is to head up your Research and Development (R&D) Hub in a Space Research Center while competing with other Hubs in the Golden Age of Astronautics. Your goal is to complete large scale projects while gathering the best minds in the business to help you do so!
Gameplay
Players begin with 5 Research tokens, a reference sheet, a R&D Hub and one Specialist card from the deck as their starting hand. In the middle a Space Research Center is formed with 6 cards and 2 Project tiles+ the number of players in the game. Play begins with the last player who has been to space most recently.
Each player on their turn will take one of two actions. You may either:
1-Take a Specialist card into your hand
2-Recruit a Specialist to the Hub
In Take a Specialist into your hand, you may either take one from the Center into your hand or draw a card from the Specialist deck. The Center is replaced with a new card if there are less than 6 Specialists in the middle at the end of your turn from picking one.
In Recruit a Specialist to the Hub you may do so directly from the Center or from your hand. Recruiting takes a few steps-you must first determine what Division the Specialist will join, determine the Research cost and provide those icons to be able to add the Specialist to the chosen Division.
When you add a Specialist to a Division they can only be added to a spot that matches their skill set. This is found on the card-some have more than one that they may join. The Recruitment cost is determined by the icons on the lower left of the card.
To determine the Recruitment Cost for a Specialist, you can check the lower left corner as mentioned above-this is the cost to add them to your Recruitment tableau in front of you.
To add Specialists to your Hub, you must pay this cost in a number of ways. It can be paid for each Researcher already in your Hub that shares the same Skills icon that matches that Division (color). Each one in the Division that matches eliminates the cost of the bottom most icon going up. Then the other icons can be paid for in a few different ways:
-Providing the physical icons that you get at the beginning. These are paid to the player on your left. This will keep them moving around the board as the game goes on.
-You can return one or more Specialists in your hand to the Center to count as two Research icons. They are used immediately to recruit towards your Hub.
-Specialists on the top of their Division have abilities that may provide Research icons or ways for you to recruit a new Specialist.
Newly recruited Specialists go on top of the other Specialists in their specific Division. This Specialist then becomes the active new ability.
At the end of your turn you may attempt to complete any Project not already taken by another player. You can complete one per turn. You first check the Skills on your Specialists in your Hub with those required to complete a Project. If you have the Skills, you complete the project. Take the tile and place it by your Hub.
The end of the game is triggered when someone completes the last Project or has recruited their 12th Specialist to their Hub. At that point turns will continue back to the First Player so everyone has equal turns. Scoring is done by counting the Progress points on your Projects, Specialists. Most points wins!
Impressions
What could be better:
Player card. I would love to see the player cards 1 sided with just the information on them. It is a small thing but to flip it through the game is less convenient then most first time players liked.
Symbology. The game had a lot of different symbols between the Research icons and Skill icons and with similar colors to the symbols they got a little confusing at first. With multiple plays of this we were able to get an easier handle on it but it did take some time.
What I liked:
Design. I love the old school cool this artwork brings to the table. 1950’s design quality of artwork is retro cool and for this era of the space-race going on around the world it was a perfect combination of theme and design together. I really like the characters and the ships adorning the Project tiles.
Gameplay. Honestly the gameplay is pretty straight forward on this one. Once you get past the symbology this game is easy to learn and play. It makes the game a great entry point for newer gamers and those with less overall experience to board gaming. My friends who are not as into “hobby” board games really enjoyed this one as much as the seasoned gamers have enjoyed it.
Overall
I really enjoyed playing Space Explorers with all the different player counts and with new and more experienced gamers alike. The gameplay really does move towards some shared similarities with Splendor and other set collection types of card games. Those that are familiar with Splendor will see aspects they like but with a different twist to the mechanics. I enjoy them both and see a place for this one in my collection along side of it. The style and design of the cards are one of my favorite parts and really help make this game stand out especially amongst other space related titles that often appear more futuristic and bold.
Space Explorers settles right into the retro cool comfort of the height of the Space Race and has a familiarity and soothing nature to it in that way. The nostalgia of the design of this will be something everyone really enjoys. I would highly recommend this one to you all and I hope you have a chance to “explore” it in the near future!
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