Sometimes a game grows beyond its initial incarnation to become something more. Looney Pyramids began in a short story written by a young Andrew Looney in 1987, and over the following 35 years it has evolved through numerous incarnations to become a full fledged game system. As such, a single review seems insufficient, and so we present Looney Saturday, a regular, bimonthly, look at a different Pyramid game.
We technically started with “Pyramids: A Primer, Abridged” which is a great place to start if you’ve never played a Pyramid game. In this month’s review, we going to look at Homeworlds, the third of four individually packaged games, collectively called the “Pyramid Quartet” as well as being included part of Pyramid Arcade:
Homeworlds
Merry Spring-mas! We are finally at the long-awaited review of the craziest Looney Labs Pyramid Arcade game, Homeworlds. The space themed pyramid game that makes me feel like I’m in the TV series Firefly. Legend has it, at the board game conventions, Andrew Looney will walk around with a copy of Home Worlds and if anyone can beat him at the game, he has a special game token to hand out. So, listen up! Hopefully this review gives you the upper hand advantage in case you ever run into Andrew Looney.
I will admit, I have been dreading this review for a very long time. The game itself was very overwhelming at first and it is the most complex Pyramid game. Thankfully, when I finally sat down with the game and learned it, it ended up not being as bad as I had feared. I did have to “cheat” for this one and watch a couple of YouTube videos on the rules and how to play, whereas the other ones I’ve reviewed I was able to learn with just the rule book. The rule book could use a little bit of tweaking, a table of contents would be quite helpful, for how many rules and sections there are, so I do suggest watching a YouTube video first. I do not recommend this game as a warmup, as it does require a decent amount of brainpower and strategy. Make sure you are all warmed up and ready for some serious thinking before you dive into Home Worlds.
The first time I played Home Worlds we spent a decent chunk of time watching videos and reviewing the rules before starting to play; it was both mine and Dave’s first time playing. Unfortunately for me, Dave remembered some of the subtle rules and kicked my butt the first round, but I did manage to redeem myself the second game and win. Normally I enjoy a glass of wine or beer when I play a new game, but I quickly realized I needed my wits about me if I were to stand a chance of beating Dave. It is very enjoyable once you get the hang of it, but I do suggest a practice round before playing for real against someone.
This is a two person only game and the setup is super simple. You need three trios of red, yellow, blue, and green and a turn token. You can obviously choose different colours if you wish but colours are very important in this game so make sure you write down which colour you pick represents which of the original colours listed. The set-up is just to stack the pyramids sorted by size and colour on the side of the playing area. That is your bank. You then flip a coin to see who goes first, or the least experienced player gets to go first.
This game has some extra terminology to learn. Binary stars are your home base and are indicated by two pyramids of a different size and colour stacked on top of each other. A system or star system is a single pyramid standing upright for representation. A ship is a pyramid on its side, and the game recommends always keeping your ships on the right side of a system to easily track which ones are yours. (Unless you are in a country where they drive on the left. In which case feel free to do that.)
Another key element to the game you need to learn, is each colour of pyramid has a different meaning. The green stars and ships build new ships. The yellow stars and ships move the ships to a new or existing system. Red means attack! Attack your opponent if the ship or star is red. Blue means trade or transform. You trade a ship for a new ship of a different colour.
The first turn is a setup round where you and the other person take turns choosing their initial pieces. You will pick 2 pyramids of different sizes for the Binary Star (your home base) and your first ship. The instruction book does give you advice and a small strategy guide for helpful tips.
After the initial turn, you have 2 options; you can do a basic action or a sacrifice action. A basic action is using a power that you can access in any star system you have a ship. A sacrifice action is sacrificing a ship and getting that many actions equal to the pip count of that ship (1, 2 or 3 dots indicating size of the pyramid/ship) in any systems you still control a ship, regardless of what coloured ships are at the star or where you sacrificed your ship.
There is a special rule, one which caused Dave to kick my butt the first round we played. I didn’t understand how beneficial this ability can be. If there are more than 4 pieces (ships and stars in the same system) of the same colour, it’ll cause what is called overpopulation. At any time you can see an overpopulation, you can declare a catastrophe. A catastrophe will destroy all the ships of that same colour, or if the star is included, it’ll destroy the whole system and return all ships to the bank.
The game is won in three different ways. You can use a red ship or star to take control of all your opponent’s ships at their Homeworld. You can do what is called a “fleet catastrophe” where you blow up all the enemy ships at their home by causing a catastrophe, or you can cause a “star demolition” which is causing 2 catastrophes to destroy the 2 halves of the binary star.
I am giving the Cole’s Notes version of this game and the rules, and I do recommend everyone go check it out for themselves. All in all, I loved this game but need to be in the right mindset to play this. The rule book could be upgraded a bit to make it more streamlined when trying to find some of the rules.
You can find everything Pyramids on its dedicated homepage at looneylabs.com/pyramids-home. or in the Starships Captain’s Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/StarshipCaptains.
More generally you can find Looney Labs online at looneylabs.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/LooneyLabs.
