Very well done, Sir! Thanks for this. Now that I have TIME to get into this on my shelf due to the pandemic, I have no OPPONENTS I can safely meet! I wish it had a solo version....
I am going to be playing this game again this weekend and needed a brush up on how to play. Paul your videos are always the first I look for and this one was just what I needed to be up to speed in no time! Thank you! 🙂
Paul, just wanted to say that this video was really helpful in getting me rolling (pun intended) this evening with 3 other novices in figuring out how to play and teach this game. I really appreciate the overview of a turn in the structure of your videos to help me piece together the heuristics (if that's the right term) of figuring out the flow.
Gaming Rules! Very well, as all had watched your video. 😊 I came away liking the game and feeling that I can do better next time. What more could we ask from a game?
Getting my copy today! Actually, it’s my second copy. The first was missing half the components 😳 no worries however! It happens. Seems they doubled up some components while missing others. Hoping to play tonight. I’ll let ya know what I think!
It's not that heavy. When running demos of it, within 10 mins everyone is up and running and the rules are fairly streamlined. There are just a number of choices.
Hi Paul, great tutorial here, thanks. What is your opinion of the game, though? Did you like playing it? Do you find there is enough interaction between the players or do we have another multiplayer solitaire like with Kepler 3042?
Hi. Thanks for the comment. However, these are purely instructional videos, not reviews. I actually worked on this game as a developer and playtester, and I do a lot of other work for CGE, so it would be wrong of me to share my personal opinion on the game. You won't find any of my opinions on my instructional videos. However, you will find my opinions on some games on my review videos / podcasts / monthly VLOG's etc.
No, I fully appreciate that, it is just a shame that we cannot exchange opinions with someone so knowledgeable about the game. Unless... there is another separate space where to entertain such discussions. But no, I totally get it and it is very professional of you.
Thanks for understanding. I try not to give my personal opinions too much on games I have been asked to work on (creating videos, writing rulebooks). However, with this game, I was part of the design and development team, so if for example I said that I really like it, people will just think I am saying that because I worked on it. But also, if I said I didn't like it, and CGE read this, that would be very bad. So, it's a no win situation really! :)
Good explanation. Interesting mechanisms. Those are my favorite type of d6's the rounded corners and edges. High Tide uses them they're a nice size and roll well. The board reminds me of the 70's Milton Bradley Star Trek board game which could use some updated graphics that look like this but has its charm ; see the amazing resemblance in my vid STAR TREK The Motion Picture Board Game Milton Bradley 1979 | Collection THX1138 It makes me want to add some ideas from Pulsar.
A question regarding movement - when passing through a system, do you have to place a marker on a blue planet (in case when there are no dead planets available) or is it optional? Same with landing in a system - if blue planets are taken, is it mandatory to place your marker on a dead planet? Both the rulebook and your video are somewhat ambiguous regarding that.
Hi, I just have a question about how the Die Doubler works. From what I understand, you pay a die and then your die is split into two dice which is one silver die and a red die of the same number. What happens to that new silver die you just obtained? The rule-book states that you can only have one bonus action which is the red die and you must immediately spend that action this turn and that you can not use the Die Doubler if you cannot use the red die. Is the new silver die you now obtained supposed to do something? There's something about the die that you paid for the action going to the black hole and that it becomes the number of the new silver die you just obtained. Is there supposed to be some kind of benefit of having different number dice in the black hole? I don't see anything mentioned in the rulebook that makes use of this and all the dice get re-rolled next turn anyway. If the point of the Die Doubler is just to get the red die then why can't it just say that you pay a die to obtain the red die of some indicated value instead of obtaining two dice of the indicated value, but one you cannot use? Also, that seems wasteful to me that you are spending an action to get another action when you could just spend energy cubes to get another action so you would have 3 actions all together instead of spending 1 action to get another action so then you are only really getting 2 actions this turn.
Hi. Thanks for your question. The silver die you just gained you use as an action. Although it is another action, it is technically not a BONUS action - a BONUS action is the red die. So, if you spend a 3 to gain a silver 2 and a red 2 - that means you now have two actions, both value 2, and the red die is your BONUS action, meaning you cant have another BONUS action in the same turn. Effectively, you don't really put the "3" into the black hole, you just change it to a "2" So yeah, you spend 1 die to get 2 dice. I hope that helps.
Ok, so then that would be 4 actions all together with one being to spend a 3 die to get 2 actions with a value of 2 and then you would have one action remaining with whatever number you got one your second silver die. Is this correct? If that’s true that I would see the benefit of using the doubler.
sort of. Let me try and explain. You have a 3 and a 6. You use the 3 on the technology which gives you a silver 2 and a red 2. So now, you have a 2, 2, and a 6 to use. So yeah, technically, you have had 4 actions - but... the "3" action didn't really do anything except get you the two 2's, so really, you are only doing three actions. The way I see it is that that technology splits the 3 into two 2's Hope that helps
Eyup, it does. So now I see why that's good because it allows you to get 3 actions (granted you now have two dice of the same value which in your example would be 2) at the cost of one silver die(3). Even though it cost you that one die, you're kinda of getting that action back since now it becomes a different number, plus you are getting an additional action with the red die of the same number as your new silver die. The other tech that I saw that gives you a red die is when you spend a die and then you can spend an energy cube to get the red die. Now that one seems worse than what I thought initially of the Dice Doubler. Spending a die as well as energy to just get the Red Die seems really wasteful. Granted you are getting the benefit of patenting a tech which can help with end goals, other tech, etc. However, with the Dice Doubler at least you are getting 3 actions where with this you are only getting two, so you're not gaining anything out of it besides the benefit of patenting a tech, however you have the loss of the one energy cube. Thank you for answering my questions and I'm looking forward to playing this with my gaming group!
Thanks for letting me know. RU-vid turned ads on my videos without my permission. I just haven't had chance to go in and turn them off, since it has to be done manually for each one. Also - please note. Every single penny of my ad revenue goes to charity. Every penny. I make zero money from adverts.
