Roll for the Galaxy
Sick Day
The best thing about having teachers as friends is that they’ll come goof off with you on a summer workday even if you have a head cold. That shit bounces right off ’em. Honey badger.
I’ve been trying to fill out my sub-hour, non-migraine-inducing not-filler game library a bit this year (yes yes, after I dropped my whole #nonewgames2015 nonsense, never again). Picked up some good stuff! The latest couple were Neuroshima Hex (outstanding little game by the same guy who did Theseus, which has gotten an absurd amount of play here) and Roll for the Galaxy.
Oh man is this a neat little game. It bears a lot of thematic and structural similarity to Race for the Galaxy but it’s … different. Really different, and really neat.
The overall shape of play is similar to Race: you’ll be choosing phases, then everyone will be doing them, and you’ll be trying to hit the most points by the time the game’s over. To make it a dice game, they upended and reimagined a lot of the underlying stuff of Race. Rather than spending cards to play cards, you have a “citizens” economy to stay on top of, and “credits” with which to get them back to use again. There are a zillion different colors of dice (the citizens!) and they all have their own distribution of faces that match up to the game’s five phases. You are building a tableau out of chits, each with a planet on one side and a development on the other. Choosing which to commit to is devastating!
Despite being totally dice-driven, I often felt challenged to get the dice to fit to what I wanted to do, but never felt completely boned by bad rolls. There’s always something to do with dice, even if you don’t want to do the phase of the faces they show. And with enough dice in your pool, you can be ensured of doing something no matter what the other players pick, since you can cover all the phases with a die or two.
There’s such a pleasure in getting a little engine up and running, as well as the serotonin or dopamine or whatever brain chemical hit of intermittent rewards (i.e. the dice coming up just right). Like Race, Roll for the Galaxy can feel like solitaire for long stretches. But also like Race, I constantly found myself evaluating likely plays by the other players, trying to figure out how to get the most of their choices and give them the least out of my choices.
The fiction behind Race for the Galaxy is also dramatically expanded, with a zillion tiles you’re drawing from a bag to build. Someday, I swear I’m gonna do up an unlicensed, unofficial space opera RPG setting using the RFTG images and fiction.
We played three games (30-45 minutes each for a 2p game) and it is delightful. Highest recommendation.
Daniel Swensen happily it does not feel like one replaces the other. I’m a huge Race nerd, and this game feels quite different.
Paul after passing me the Race bug you might have passed me the Roll bug
“I’ve been trying to fill out my sub-hour, non-migraine-inducing not-filler game library a bit this year”
Have you played Tsuro?
I love Neuroshima Hex. It’s available as an app. Only vs an AI or pass-and-play multiplayer, unfortunately. But it’s still a ton of fun sometimes.
Paul Czege Tsuro is a filler.
Is it? What’s your distinction between filler and non-filler then?
Dunno. Tsuro isn’t that challenging.
I have not been able to grok N. Hex. It falls into that Hive-esque headspace where I just stare and drool and look like Brand Robins at the airport.
But Roll FtG was alot of fun. I think it’s much more accessible than Race. It’s also much better than Nations Dice. Despite the complexity of the board game Nations, Dice is stripped down to filler.
But if you’re really looking for sub-hour non-filler games, I recommend Sail to India. That game is so good its silly how good it is.
Paul Czege have you played No Thanks! ?
I have not. Why do you mention it?
It’s a good filler, not brain burn-y, but still thinky.
I may have misread your comment, I see the quotes now.
Paul Beakley have you played No Thanks! ?
I actually don’t have much of a board game library. I play them mostly at gatherings of a local board game club, or with friends who own them. But I’ll check out No Thanks.
This game, for some reason, reminded me of a book I had to read in school many, many years ago. It was called “Interstellar Pig”.
Sean Ropp OMG INTERSTELLAR PIG. I recently discovered there’s a sequel!
Oh, when y’all want brain burn, check out Chase. It’s an excellent two-player abstract.
Neuroshima Hex is so good and I’m so bad at it.
Roll for the Galaxy sounds awesome. Playable with a bright 10 year old (and a thick 37 year old), you think?
I liked Race. It was actually a little too migrainey for my first play, but that will probably settle down a bit for me.
San Juan and King of Tokyo are perfect for that space for me.
Neuroshima Hex condenses hex & chit war games into 45 minutes of fun and skims off all the fat that rises to the top. No need to reference tables or check hex coordinates, just BOOM! place a unit, BOOM! place another, BOOM! your opponents lays down a unit to fuck your other units hard, BOOM! he attacks! JUST BOOM!.
In actuality, it’s probably not so much BOOM as it is PLOP. Still…
Mikael Andersson absolutely!
Thank you Paul. You answered a question I asked elsewhere. “Should I buy RtfG at inflated UK prices? “