A few days ago we introduced you to the young publisher al-Khwarizmi Games in our inside article before. We spoke to founders and game designers Taras Tomyshch and Alex Pchelintsev about their games and future projects. They both kindly made their games available to us. In this review we would like to introduce you to Taras' game, Space Expatriate, which was created in collaboration with his friend Ihor.
In Space Expatriate, 2-4 players represent private companies that have recently sent space stations into the far reaches of space to find ways to terraform other planets. The aim of the players is to collect as many terraforming points as possible, which reflect the competence of the company. However, these can only really be brought to bear on colonies. Therefore, the players must collect colonies in addition to terraforming points. Both are converted into victory points at the end. Whoever has the most victory points wins the game.
The battle for cards
Space Expatriate can be described as a kind of set collection game with engine building elements. The aim is to collect as many colonies and terraforming points as possible. We do this by performing one of four possible actions. These are openly displayed in each round in the form of four modules for our space station. The active player may choose a module and place it on his space station. The corresponding action can then be carried out by all players, whereby as an active player you have additional bonus actions.
The Delivery action (delivery) is probably the most important action of all actions. This is where we create resources, run our engine, and generate terraforming points. The better the cards of the individual modules fit together, the more points we can ultimately generate.
The Engineering Action (Engineering) allows the player to put modules from his hand next to his space station in order to improve his engine. As an active player, you have the option of attaching three modules to your space station at once instead of just one module. The one that triggers the action, one from your hand and an additional one you draw from one of the four module decks.
The Terraforming action is the way to establish colonies. The active player chooses a module type, after which all players can decide whether they want to discard three modules of the designated module type or four different modules from their space station in order to take a colony from the display. Colonies give additional effects that can help you in the game. They are also an important component in determining the number of victory points at the end of the game.
The last action is this Military Action (Military). It is the source of procurement for new hand cards that can later be used specifically in the engineering action. Depending on which player has the most symbols of a type has dominance in that symbol. This is illustrated by blue and red markers. While red represents inferiority, blue symbolizes superiority. Depending on the number of inferior symbols in the opponent's symbols, the active end of the game can draw new cards from the respective module decks. Alternatively, however, he can also take over a module of a generic space station.
Once all players have been active and have chosen a module including their action, the round ends. Here, as with the military action, the superiority of all players is checked. If you have more inferiority than superiority markers, you cannot become the starting player in the next round. It is therefore important here to have a good overview of these, since as the starting player you can always have full control over your action.
Space Expatriate ends as soon as all players together own a certain number of colonies or one player alone has collected 10 colonies. A scoreboard is then used to check who has collected the most victory points. The more colonies you own, the fewer terraforming points you need to generate a higher score.
Wrong priorities
Space Expatriate's components are pretty standard. Nothing special, but not bad either. However, we found it annoying that savings were made in the wrong corners. So there are simply far too few resource tokens for the game to be able to perform its delivery action at the same time. This can be an annoying problem, especially in games with three or four players. Conversely, the starting player marker is huge and made of heavy metal. Here you could have used cheaper material or a smaller marker and contributed more resource markers.
The rulebook is a little awkward to read. It's written a little more complicated than the game actually is. In particular, the descriptions of the delivery and the military action had to be read several times, as different things felt to be confused here. The help cards didn't really help us to answer our questions either. The first game in particular was therefore a constant scrolling back and forth in search of the right solution.
About Space Expatriates
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| Number of players: 2 to 4 Age: from 12 years Playing time: 60 - 90 minutes Difficulty: medium Long-term motivation: medium Mechanics: Set Collection, Engine Builder Author: Taras Tomyshch, Ihor Chulinda |
Conclusion
Space Expatriate is a game that is actually quite simple to play and is also quickly explained once you have played the game. It also has really good moments, for example when you have your modules perfectly matched, don't produce any unnecessary resources and can also generate a large amount of terraforming points. In these situations, Space Expatriate is an excellent game. In addition, the game is very easy to play with all numbers of players. We hardly noticed a difference here.
However, there are a lot of little things that kind of bothered us about the game. For example, the victory point system is a bit too opaque. You have a huge point table on your help card, but there are simply too many numbers, which makes everything seem a bit confusing. It also feels a little unsatisfactory when you have collected a large number of terraforming points and ultimately only win the game with 7 victory points. The game is also a bit too long for our taste. After 45 minutes, the game dragged on a bit because a lot was repeated and the building of colonies always took a little longer. Overall, we needed about 75 minutes per game on average. The theme is also quite interchangeable. There are now just a lot of games with a space theme that can also create a much better immersion than Space Expatriate.
For a debut, Space Expatriate is a step in the right direction. Even if the game doesn't run smoothly, in some situations it produces very satisfying combinations that briefly increase the fun of the game.
If you are interested in Space Expatriate, you can download the game at Aroshops magazine.
| Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Strohmann Games STR23001 Federation Kennerspiele,... * |
69,99 EUR |
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