“Here, hold this lightbulb while I go shoot this space pirate.”
This past weekend, I had the privilege of demoing for CGE at GenCon & during that time, I taught 4 different groups their next upcoming release game, Starship Captains. Since I taught & didn’t actually play, this may be more of a first impression as opposed to a true review, but I feel like I got a good feel for the game, even without actually playing.
Keep in mind, that this was a prototype and some of the components/rules may change when officially published.
SETUP
There’s a center board that has an array of planet spots to hold a random mission card as well as 2 space stations (robot faction & the pirate faction) and the starting station (human faction). At the top of the board, there are medals per player put in the allotted space for the 2nd & 4th rounds. On the 3rd round space, you’ll place a grey worker per player.
Next to the board, you’ll place 3 “track boards” that correspond to the 3 factions (robot, pirate, humans). Each player starts at the beginning of each of these.
Each player has their own “ship” board that is dual-layered and uniquely shaped along with a “tech” board. Each player is given 2 of each coloured ensign (red/yellow/blue) & 1 cadet (grey). You also start with a medal.
Since you’re fresh out of the academy, you don’t get a nice new ship (remember when you were 16 and got your first car? It wasn’t a brand new one, was it? Probably not). The ship starts out with damage tokens in 3 of the cargo bays and 4 damage tokens on your tech board (blocking most of it). Don’t worry, you’ll be able to fix it (you’ve all been trained in that).
GAMEPLAY/OVERVIEW
The way your player board is designed, it has the cargo bays on the bottom, the “bridge” above that & a long “hallway” around the top of the board. At the start of the same, you start with 1 of each colour (red/yellow/blue/grey) on the bridge, leaving the other 3 “hanging out in the hallway”, waiting for their turn on the bridge (I like to say they’re changing lightbulbs & mopping the floor. I mean, someone’s gotta do it).
Each of the colours is a specific class: Red (Engineers), Yellow (Gunners), Blue (Tech) & Grey (still just a cadet so they don’t have a class yet. Each class is assigned to specific tasks, making this basically an action selection game.
Engineers – Move the ship up to 2 spaces on the main map, following the dotted lines, going from planet to planet (or station), in search of missions & bonuses.
Gunners – Shoot down nearby space pirates, collecting their ships & bonuses in the process (which are stored in the carbo bays, if you have space). Keep in mind, when you shoot at pirates, they shoot back (take a damage to your ship). Also, if your engineers fly past a pirate, yeah, they shoot at you, and you take damage.
Techs – Collect tech cards & end game bonus cards, which are placed on your tech board, if you have space (don’t forget to repair some of that damage first). The available end game cards, of which there are only 3, will never replenish. Once one is taken, it is replaced with a standard tech card. The standard tech cards are things like rule breakers for you or new rooms for certain classes (coloured). All of them are good. There are also “connections” you can make with icons on the sides of each card as well as on your board, which will give you bonuses if you make a connection.
Cadets – They can repair the ship. Go to this space & remove one damage marker. Anyone can repair but this is the only thing cadets can do.
I mentioned missions earlier (after flying to a planet). If you hand landed here on a previous turn, you can take the mission card & place it next to your ship. On the side of the card will be anywhere from 1-3 colour markers along with bonuses next to each. Anyone on your ship can go & complete a mission (gaining the endgame points listed on the card) but if you send the worker that matches that colour, you receive their bonus. These bonuses could be more medals (we’ll explain what these are for shortly), movement on various faction track boards or even “tin cans” (what we call the little gold robots in the game). These tin cans are useful for missions (they are wild & match every colour). In fact, missions are the only thing the robots can do (they can’t fit down the hallway, so they are left behind after completing their mission).
Speaking of the hallway, after you’ve chosen your selected action with your worker of choice, you do the action & then slide your worker down the hallway to stand with the 3 that were waiting at the beginning of the game.
Each player chooses one action and then it’s the next player’s turn. Continue until you’re out of workers or artifacts (something you may acquire as a bonus, which when paired, can substitute a worker) that you want to spend & pass. Once all players have passed, you’ll slide all of your workers into the bridge (so those first 3 that have been waiting patiently will be the first out) until there are 3 left in the hall (always nonessential things to be done around here).
The last thing I want to go over is the medals. These can be saved for end game points (but only 0.5/ea) but are much more valuable during the game. At any time during your turn, you can spend one of them to train a worker in a different position (cadets can become engineers or gunners can become technicians, etc) or you can spend three of them to promote an ensign to an officer (by placing a white ring around the base of the figure). As an officer, they have several options they can do when used. 1) Perform the room action TWICE, 2) Perform the room action ONCE and THEN order an ensign (of your class) to the bridge (to come to work early), or 3) Get DOUBLE the reward on mission cards. Plus, officers are each worth 1 point at the end of the game.
There are a few specifics that I won’t go into, like the artifacts, but I think you get the gist of it.
THOUGHTS ON THE GAME
Again, this is basically a first impression, but I thought it looked enjoyable. With a teacher and full complement of 4 players, each game ran between 90-110 minutes. I’d say the game feels like a light-midweight game, about a 2.5. The artwork on the mission cards had little easter eggs for other Syfy shows, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, & more. It’s very tongue-in-cheek & doesn’t take itself too seriously. Everyone that played said they enjoyed themselves. Some mentioning that they either had or were gonna pre-order it. I myself plan on picking up a copy once it hits retail.
First Impression – 7.5 out of 10
You can find Czech Games Edition (CGE) online at czechgames.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/czechgames.
