Lower Decks – Buffer Time

I have a confession to make. As I write this, I’m about two seasons behind on Lower Decks. I am disappointed in myself because I think Lower Decks is one of the best Star Trek series to ever air. The show is a loving and irreverent homage to the Next Generation era of Trek.  What makes Lower Decks so special is its irreverence. Most Star Treks are “played straight” taking even the most ridiculous of things completely seriously and let’s be honest, there was a lot of ridiculous back then. Especially looking at it from 35-ish years later. Lower Decks doesn’t just acknowledge this fact, it revels in it.  It wallows in it, rolling around in the dirtiest garbage that Rick Berman threw out at us, and elevated it to comedy gold.  Trek of the 90s was rife with stereotypes. Questions and topics of a… questionable… nature are artfully skirted or ignored. Not in Lower Decks, though. They never make fun of these points, but rather it flies straight into them at warp speed, creating comedy. Yes, that includes cleaning the holodecks, because well… you know why.

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Buffer Time, The Card Game is a mouthful. Sooooo simply Buffer Time it is. Buffer Time is a cooperative push-your-luck card game where players are working together to finish assignments, while also making time for as many “side projects” as possible. Just like the best episodes of the show, really.

To set things up, five Assignment Cards are dealt face down in a pile. There are 18 of these cards, making for a reasonable amount of replayability. Players then each draw two Alpha Shift Ability Cards and two Side Project cards. Each turn you’ll draw back up to two Side Projects, but your Ability Cards are more limited. 

Flip the top Assignment Card face up, this is the Duty Assignment. The Duty Assignment will show the target effort needed to complete the assignment as well as any Leisure Points the players will score upon completion. Then the top card of the Shift Deck is flipped. Shift Cards provide most of the Effort that players will need to complete the Assignment. On their turn, each player must take one of the following actions:

GET TO WORK – Flip over the top card of the Shift Deck and add its Effort to the total. But be careful, there are Officers mixed in with the Shift cards and if too many of them turn up you’ll be reprimanded and the Duty Assignment will be discarded along with any Side Projects. No points for you, slackers!

START A SIDE PROJECT – Play a Side Project Card from your hand. Side Projects add to the total Effort needed to complete and score the current Assignment, but in return, it adds to the Leisure Points you’ll score if you succeed. If you get too greedy, remember that more effort also means flipping more Shift cards and more chances you’ll get caught by an Officer.

DO SOMETHING SPECIAL – Play an Alpha Shift Card from your hand.  The entire premise of Lower Decks is following the junior officers of Alpha Shift as they break the rules and generally cause chaos. So naturally, that’s exactly what the Alpha Shift Ability Cards do. They break the rules and generally cause chaos.  This could mean scoring extra leisure points or shuffling Officers back into the Shift Deck. Drinking ROMULAN ALE, amusingly adds to the effort totally without flipping a shift card. Because that makes total sense…

LOG A COMPLETED ASSIGNMENT – If the players have met or exceeded the Target Effort the active player may choose to score the Assignment and draw an Alpha Shift Ability Card. It is an optional action, so they could also choose START A SIDE PROJECT or DO SOMETHING SPECIAL. They can not, however, GET TO WORK if the current Target has been met. 

That last action is an important one. Players must specifically take their action to score an Assignment or decide to take an action that will prolong the round. That is one of the places this game really shines. Because it is a cooperative push-your-luck game the only thing that happens automatically is getting reprimanded by the officers. You live or die as a team. Beyond that, this is one of those games that you experience as a team. It’s not the sort of game that usually lends itself to cooperative play, it’s too straightforward. It’s because it’s so straightforward that it works well as a co-op game. You could play this game from a strictly mathematically odds standpoint. But the Alpha Shift Cards drastically shift the odds (no pun intended there). More importantly, Lower Decks is a ridiculous show about ridiculous friends working together to achieve ridiculous goals. That’s three “ridiculous” uses in a single sentence, so why would you expect a Lower Decks game to be any less so? Actually, the game is not nearly as ridiculous as the show, but it’s still fun and a bit quirky.

I had the chance to play a game of Buffer Time live on my stream from Game-a-Lot a while ago, so you can watch and see if Buffer Time is for you. I certainly enjoyed it.

You can find more great Star Trek games, and more, by visiting Modiphius Entertainment online at modiphius.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/Modiphius.