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Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
Out of the Milky Way, into pleasure - the vast universe has always been a gigantic projection surface for all the dreams and fantasies for which a single blue planet is simply too small.
While the billionaires on earth are still competing for all-tourism, we are already further at the gaming table and have long since opened up a lot of strange worlds.
Risky space travel, cosmic wars and imperial diplomacy are among the most popular theme worlds (here there are more all-games and here it goes to Mars).
Here are six new, exciting adventures for small and large groups.
"Dune Imperium": Spice it up, now the Fremen are coming
The desert planet is called like this for a reason: Everything is scarce here. What we need are the mysterious substances spice, water and money. What we don't have are spice, money and water. But we can get that - if we are smart or strong enough, preferably both. Dune is very atmospheric. Anyone who knows the science fiction saga is also in the film in Paul Dennen's game. The illustrations on the cards are based on the new movie, the rest of the material is a bit more unadorned, but that doesn't hurt: the game on the table has a nice, clear look that is very inviting.
Your own deck of cards is weak at the beginning, but slowly gets better. With the cards you can go to different places on the board, place your own figure there and collect resources. At the end of the round you can buy more and hopefully even better cards - and fight for sovereignty over one of the locations on the desert planet. Intrigue cards can cause surprising twists here and at the end of the game. Even the cards not used are still worth something at the end of the round; so you always have the pleasant feeling that everything you do is somehow worthwhile. If everyone knows the game, most of the games will end up tight - that brings excitement, especially since there is no one master strategy, but many different approaches can lead to success. Solo mode also works well. (More solo games can be found here.)
For one to four people aged 14 and over, playing time one to two hours
"Galaxy Trucker": Into space with a bunch of junk
Oh yes, should I take off into space with this pile of junk? Help! But it's my own fault. Or my weakness in making decisions. “Galaxy Trucker” is a nice challenge for people who otherwise paralyze the whole game with their option paralysis until the others feel they have been waiting so long for their clothes to slowly go out of style. In the first phase, under time pressure, you have to grab all the tiles that you need to build a spaceship: If you hesitate too long, you have to start with a very small and fragile ship; if you reach for everything too quickly, you might be more likely to catch the inferior components : Small holds, lousy crew cabins, weak shields and cannons that point in the wrong direction.
The combination of greed, time pressure and limited space for shipbuilding puts you in a good mood, especially since the instructions are written in a loving and humorous way and lead into the game through a simplified, small learning session.
When the spaceships are ready, we have no choice: We, the truckers of the galaxy, have to go with the pots and hopefully can buffer all collisions with asteroids and enemy ships so that at least the most important parts reach the goal and we at least a little more money on the seam than the competition.
The classic from Vlaada Chvátil convinces in the completely renovated new edition with fine mechanisms, adjustable levels of difficulty and ship sizes as well as new challenges.
For two to four people aged eight and over, playing time around half an hour
"Star Scrappers Orbital": The space decorators are coming
If you want to go into space, you first need an orbital station.
Of course, it should be the best orbital station in all of space.
To do this, we mill our way through a pile of cards in five rounds, which offers both helpful events and interesting modules for our stations - if only they weren't so expensive!
Of course you have to optimize everything: income, structure, technology, manpower, science and military force.
Would you rather pick up an event card that promises quick success, or is it better to invest your money in a lucrative space farm or a fat attack module?
Majorities in card suits bring you victory points;
each module has its advantages, but for some you need astronauts who also want to be accommodated.
Jakob Fryxelius is the author of the clear and quickly learned card placement game, in which you start with a small central module and end up with daring constructions on the road to victory. The Swede with the bushy beard is also the author of "Terraforming Mars", one of the best map-building games ever, but which is quite complex. "Star Scrappers: Orbital" is much simpler and offers good options for rounds who like tactical planning and agile reactions to random elements. There is also a bit of interaction between the players - the level of aggression is perhaps three out of ten: you can tamper with the other, but everything is automatically repaired at the end of the round. A nice nightcap for experienced players,for the inexperienced perhaps the launch pad in a new kind of evening entertainment.
"Star Scrappers: Orbital" is currently available from Spiele-Offensive.de.
For one to five people aged ten and over, playing time around an hour
"Rocketmen": On to the launch pad
Perhaps you'd prefer to start a size smaller and even start manned space travel at all. That too can be pretty exciting, as Martin Wallace's Rocketmen shows. It combines two mechanisms that are also convenient for casual gamers: push your luck and deck building. The former means that you are constantly faced with decisions that make you gain a lot, but also lose a lot - and you have to think about it: do I draw another card or do I prefer to break up? The second means that you can already do a lot to help luck on the jumps, because every player improves his deck of cards through smart purchases and makes his rockets more airworthy.At our launch pads we prepare the next mission with our maps - be it a modest little satellite in orbit or an impressive marshotel, if you get that far.
If you are very unlucky, you won't get a leg on the ground in this game.
Then the other players buy away all the great cards and you can't even make it to the moon.
That can be frustrating.
But the luck factor is a central element of this race in space.
The thrill of having risked something and, perhaps against all odds, having conquered an epic mission is not for free.
You compete for the best seats, and that works very well on your own - the game has a finely balanced solo mode that makes it a nice challenge for single players.
For one to four people aged 14 and over, playing time around one to one and a half hours
"Beyond the Sun": Fine technical tinkering
There are people who can mentally devise a complete Excel table for complex work processes and then only have to enter them one-to-one into the computer. For those whose brains work in this way, “Beyond the Sun” is like a warm, wonderful bubble bath: a game in which everything is so pleasantly and logically intertwined and which rewards you again and again for making the right decisions and assigning them carefully to have. And we urgently need to make the right decisions: It's the 23rd century, the earth is - surprise! - pretty broken, and we urgently need new planets on which we can hopefully do better.
You have to get used to the look of Dennis K. Chan's game. It looks a bit sober, more like a prototype, but the actual cinema takes place in the head anyway. The players each control a faction with special skills, which explores space and promotes scientific, economic, military and commercial developments. Where the journey is going is only decided during the game: the flowchart of the tech tree is equipped with cards so that the first developer defines the possible paths for the descendants and makes tactical guidelines in the process. A second plan shows the planets that can be colonized; Gradually, more and more income is unlocked on the players' tableaus.Whoever has done the most for the development of mankind in the end wins. A real brainburner with high replay appeal.
For two to four people from the age of twelve (preferably three or four), playing time around one and a half to two hours
"Sidereal Confluence": A game for the big group
Aside from party games, it is often difficult to find good tactical games for really big rounds. The completely revised new edition of the space classic "Sidereal Confluence" is such an exceptional game: You can play it with up to nine people. That sounds exhausting, but since everyone is almost always there at the same time, even a large round does not prolong the game too much. The great game of trade and change in the Elysium sector can also be experienced well with four people. Because everyone plays their own species with their own rules, the interaction between the nine very different races is great fun. The insectoid KT'ZR'KT'RTL are simply completely different than the Faderan or the Eni Et. Basically, it's about a cooperation,in which everyone looks very carefully at their advantage - only the Zeth deal primarily with blackmail and cause trouble. But if you don't play nine, you don't have to invite them to confluence.
The very nerdy title shouldn't put you off: "Sidus" means "star" in Latin, confluence is the coming together of several objects to form a whole, it is basically a galactic conference. You haggle with one another, expand your economic system and research new technologies - and you have to weigh up again and again how many advantages you grant other players in order to advance yourself. You can trade anything - even promises for upcoming rounds. That makes the game extremely communicative. But at the same time it is a tactical breaker. Beginners in the board game hobby are probably put off by the material, for frequent gamers it is a festival: almost 400 cards, almost 300 dice and octagons, more than 200 tiles - opulence is the key. You don't have to remember much, however, because almost all information is always openly available.Depending on the peoples involved, the confluence always plays out differently - and is always great fun.
For four to nine people from the age of twelve, playing time around two to three hours
