1 Player game with a small box and footprint. It's several years old, so most of ya probably already know of it. Near the end of my first game I realized I shoulda read the criteria for a winning condition more closely. I needed to eliminate all External Threats before the Threat Deck ran out. Oops! With 3 crew members in the infirmary and 2 others 'detained' in the Scanner Area with only a couple of Threats left, I'm absolutely gonna fail to survive before the rescue fleet appears. 😄
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Well, now that I've read the Rulebook more carefully, maybe I can succeed. 🙂 I like the game.
P.S. Most of you probably don't need it as I do, but the Spell-Checker hasn't been functioning within ST for a while, for me at least, anyway. 🙁
I played a few more games with The Endless Expansion. Along with adding Apex cards and a whole new deck of Threats, it added some 'upgrades' for you and your ship. Once I allocate 3 more 'wild' crew to the Advanced Tactics card, e.g., I can flip it over and use it immediately. As you can see, this adds some decision-making to the game. I would say it improved the game a bit.
Side 1
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Side 2
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Apex Cards (put into play after eliminating all Threats)
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Yeah, I'd agree that 'cleverness' doesn't generally play a huge role in this game. There are minor decisions, like whether to get a crew member out of the infirmary or free-up the one caught in the 'scanner', which threat to eliminate first, or how to assign the 'wild' dice, but a highly advanced brain (which is what I tell my girlfriend I have (she's not buyin' it 😄)) doesn't seem to help you in a vastly significant way. 🙂
I like this game, in that the "raw fun" factor is here, at least for me. But it lasts too long in my opinion, and going through the whole deck of threats every game proved exhausting to me. But maybe I'm reading the rulebook incorrectly as well.
I also like that you can purchase and start playing the game within few minutes, it's really a simple one. The ship variety is also much welcome.
What I don't like is that, most of the time, there doesn't seem to be any "clever" way to allocate the dice, so I feel I can't make progress, unless I can somehow improve my luck.