Czech Games Galaxy Trucker, Black

I'm a fan of European strategy board games like Stone Age, Puerto Rico, and many others. The games I like tend to have a bit more strategic depth than most, so when I saw the name "Galaxy Trucker", it sounded campy and silly and so I avoided it. What a mistake! In fact, it *is* campy and silly, but it's so hilariously funny that you'll be too busy laughing out loud to mind the fact that there isn't a lot of deep strategy involved. I finally played the game last night at the urging of a friend, and immediately bought my copy and started writing this review that same night - it's that good! The game consists of three increasingly difficult races across the galaxy, each of which takes 20-30 minutes. Before you can race, you need a space ship. But you don't simply get a ship pre-made; you have to construct your own ship out of spare parts. Think "Star Control 2" meets "Pipe Dream". In other words, you get a stream of random ship components and must try to assemble them as best you can under time pressure. Ship components are square tiles, each of which have a function (crew quarters, engines, weapons, etc.) and 1 or more connections on their edges. Some tiles are "dead-ends" (having only 1 connection) making them better suited to the exterior of your ship, while others branch out making them better for the interior of your ship. But, you'll likely get them in the wrong order and have to improvise how you deal with them. Do you reject them and risk another player taking them, or do you put them in storage and risk paying a penalty for not using them? Or, you might get precisely the ship component you want but it has the wrong type of connection. Doh! Unlike Pipe Dream, there are multiple types of connections, and adjacent tiles must have compatible connection types. It is acceptable to leave connections exposed to outer space, but doing so makes your ship more vulnerable. Overall, the ship-building portion of the game strikes the perfect balance between possibilities and difficulties. Next is the audit. Players check each other's ships for illegal tile placement (and get a good chuckle over how dorky all the ships look). If ship components are not placed correctly, the player must remove components (of his/her choice) until the ship is legal, and must pay a penalty for each scrapped piece. One friend had to remove a quarter of his ship due to a mistake at a critical internal joint, losing his entire forward facing gun batteries! If this sounds like a bummer, it's got a huge silver lining: everyone, including the victim himself, had a great time and couldn't stop laughing about it. This reveals another great strength of Galaxy Trucker: it's the most fun you'll ever have losing a game. In fact, it might even be more fun to lose dramatically than to win. The game is lighthearted enough that you have fun either way, and besides, there's always the next race, when you get to start over with a fresh ship. The third and final stage is the race itself. Each race consists of a sequence of random events, some good, some bad. You might have to fly through a combat zone, or face pirates, slavers, or meteor showers. Or, you might find planets or derelict ships with treasure to plunder. The player in the lead gets first pick of any treasures you find, but will also be the first to face the pirates and slavers. My personal favorite event is the meteor shower. Each player must survive a barrage of ~8 meteors of different sizes coming from different directions. This frequently results in important components flying off your ship and exposing critical interior sections to outer space. One friend lost half his ship to the worst possible meteor strike, which again just meant that we all couldn't stop laughing about it. If you make it past the finish line (no easy feat!), you get points for what place you come in, plus, there's a bonus for the finishing player with the least damage. Being a fan of science fiction, I kept being reminded of the pod racing scene in Star Wars 1: fast, furious, with danger around every corner. But science-fiction fandom is not required to enjoy this game. Casual gamers will also likely enjoy Galaxy Trucker for its unique tile-laying gameplay design, which bears some similarities to Tetris and Carcasonne. Lastly, I will point out two less obvious benefits of this game. There are no individual player turns, which means that all players are actively engaged and having fun all the time. Also, the theme of mayhem and the game's lighthearted nature encourage variability and experimentation via house rules. For instance, maybe give each player a set of hidden tiles they don't have to share, or barter tiles with friends, or auction some tiles, or make the race longer, or add your own race events. You can also get more official options via the game's expansion set, which increases the maximum number of players to 5. (The base game supports 2-4, and plays best with 4 - more people to laugh at and with.) The game has very few downsides. Rules sticklers may not be totally happy, as several rules are hazy. This isn't a serious problem though because most ambiguities can be easily clarified with a logical house rule, and besides, it fits well with the game's lighthearted nature and openness to variation. Lastly, the game is expensive relative to other board games, and Amazon usually doesn't have the best prices on board games, so you may want to shop around for a better deal.

Superb. The game itself and the quality in which it arrived. This game feels like RoadRash or Carmageddon of board games. If one calls themselves a gamer, they need to play Galaxy Trucker. This game is more fun than strategic/tactical and also is not shallow.

El juego es bueno pero cabe señalar que en la descripción dice que es la edición de Devir y/o que está en español y no es cierto. Aún así, los elementos del juego no son dependientes del idioma si lo adquieren pudieran conseguir alguna versión de las instrucciones en español en internet o aprender a jugar con los videos que hay en youtube. En sí el juego se divide en dos fases: la construcción y el viaje. En la primera parte todos los jugadores simultáneamente tratarán de armar sus naves, una pieza a la vez y que cumpla con las limitaciones de las piezas. Una vez concluido el tiempo, procederán a la revisión de las naves y al viaje, donde se usarán las tarjetas para ver que obstáculos tendrán que sortear durante el viaje. El juego permite cierta flexibilidad en los viajes, ya que tiene cartas de viaje rotuladas con 1, 2 y 3. Incluyendo en cada viaje, tarjetas de los viajes anteriores, o sólo del viaje actual, o solamente del inmediato anterior. La destreza juega una parte importante durante la construcción de la nave y el azar durante la fase de viaje.

Awesome game and good quality board n parts

I got this one just like that, just below half price. I only played it twice so far, but it looks promising.