Game Review: Galaxy Trucker

By Rick Thornquist

Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Designer: Vladimír Chvátil
Game Artist: Radim “Finder” Pech
Rules Artist: Tomáš Kučerovský
Graphic Design: Filip Murmak
Players: 2-4
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Languages: English, German or Czech
Release Date: October 2007

Game Played: Pre-Production Prototype with Final Graphics and Rules
Number of Plays: 4 (2, 3 and 4 Player Games)

Czech game designer Vladimír Chvátil has become known for his ability to take a good game concept and bring it to a higher level.  Prophecy (soon to be available in North America from Z-Man Games) took the idea of a Talisman RPG boardgame and, in my opinion, greatly improved on it.  Graenaland was his improvement of Settlers, and Through the Ages was his revision of the classic Civilization-type game.  With Galaxy Trucker, though, Chvátil veers away from improving on an existing concept in favor of something that is quite original.

The first that must be mentioned about Galaxy Trucker is the rules.  It isn’t often that I can say a game has a really good set of rules, but in this case I’ll say it with pleasure—Galaxy Trucker’s rules are great.  The writing is excellent and the rules are descriptive, concise, and very well laid out.  There are sidebars that tell the story of the game and though they are not required reading, they are hilarious and well worth checking out.  Big kudos to the writer of the rules, who I assume to be the designer, and to translator Jason Holt.

The game itself has players building spaceships and then flying them through space, having adventures along the way.  There are three rounds and in each round there are two phases. 

In the first phase, players build their ships.  Each player gets a ship sheet which is a blank grid.  In the middle of the table is dumped a pile of ship components—cabins, engines, guns, shields, cargo holds, etc.—face down.  When one player says “Go!”, all players simultaneously grab components and place them on their ship sheet.  This phase is sort of like a simultaneous speed puzzle game where you need to get the right components and connect them the right way in order to make a good ship.  The player who finishes first gets to be the leading ship in the next phase, and so on for second, third and fourth (and being in the leading ship in the next phase can be quite an advantage, so there is incentive to build your ship quickly). 

In the second phase, a set of cards is revealed, one at a time, which shows the adventures the player’s ships encounter.  Each card affects all the player’s ships, though the player in the leading ship may get first crack at some adventures.  Planets can give you goods to load into your cargo holds, abandoned ships and stations give you more goods or cosmic credits (the currency of the game), etc.  Those are the good ones.  The nasty ones are things like meteoric swarms, smugglers, slavers, pirates, etc., all who can attack you.

When you are attacked, dice are rolled to see which part of your ship gets blown off.  Careful construction of your ship can deflect some bullets, but it’s more than likely that you’ll lose some components during your flight.  If you lose a component that links a bunch of components to the rest of the ship, you lose those components as well (much to the amusement of the other players).

The flight ends when all of the adventure cards have been gone through.  Players claim cosmic credits for the goods in their cargo holds, and some bonuses are given out for the leading ship, etc.  Finally, players lose money for components blasted off their ship during the round.

Each succeeding round gives you a bigger ship with which to start fresh and build anew.  The adventures also get harder as well.  After three rounds, whoever has the most cosmic credits wins.

The game is a bit difficult to pigeonhole because it combines the brain-burning puzzle solving of the first phase with the dice-rolling silliness of the second phase.  Though most players I played with enjoyed the puzzle solving aspect of the first phase, most of the fun was had in the second phase when big chunks of player’s ships get blasted off.

There is definitely strategy to this game, but there is lots of luck as well.  The better you build your ship, the better it will survive the adventures.  You are allowed to look at some of the adventure cards while building your ship which does allow you to plan for what may come.  In the second phase, though, the roll of the dice can, and usually does, throw planning completely out the window.

I quite liked the game and all the people I played it with, save one, liked it a lot and intended on buying it.  I sometimes found it difficult to reconcile the brain-burning aspect of the game with the dice-rolling fun, but in the end I enjoyed it quite a bit and that’s what counts.

© 2007 Rick Thornquist

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Comments:

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Thanks for the review.  Is this post a sign you’ll be contributing more at BGN in the future?  Hope so! Posted by Eric Knauer on Oct 12, 2007 at 12:42 PM | #

I’m a bit torn by Galaxy Trucker.  I rather enjoy the ship-building phase, but find the remaining phases of each turn little more than a ride, with few real decisions to be made.  Here are a few of my remarks from my “Initial Impressions” article: I won’t deny that I’ve enjoyed my playings of the game. The ship assembly process is the most enjoyable, with the remainder of the game being little more than a roller coaster ride. Yes, it is fun, but unless the games are designed to be short fillers, I tend to want more meaningful choices in the games I play. Beyond the first phase, those choices are absent. Indeed, they really aren’t all that many deep choices in the first phase, either. Galaxy Trucker is a light, fun game, but as such, it lasts too long. The second and third turns feel much like the first turn, and there really isn’t anything to build on. Each turn begins anew, with little to distinguish one from the other. I give kudos to the designer for creating a novel game that is fun to play. Sadly, like the turns, each subsequent game feels much like the first game. There doesn’t appear to be enough here to give the game longevity. It appears to be a novelty that will lose its luster after just a few playings. My interest is already waning, which is not a good sign. Galaxy Trucker may have taken us where no game has gone before, but, sadly, there doesn’t appear to be much in that part of the galaxy to warrant further exploration. You can read my full comments at: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/218446 Posted by Greg Schloesser on Oct 13, 2007 at 07:06 AM | #

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