The Artemis Odyssey is live
The Artemis Odyssey is a 1-5 player resource management game in which you set out to explore and colonize the large expanses of space, since the discovery of ancient alien artifacts has made space travel much easier. Along your odyssey, you will stumble upon ruins of an ancient alien civilization that hold powerful relics of their former might. The campaign is live on Kickstarter and will run for 21 days. You may either get the retail or the deluxe Kickstarter edition which comes with miniatures for your starships and buildings.
The board is set by laying out different systems of planets, with each planet being of a different type, that is, they can be exploited for a different resource (Water, Food, Energy, or weird metals whose letters start with X, Y, and Z). You start on a planet orbiting around the Sun with one starship and one factory. You also draw (or pick) one of the 5 Mission cards, which specifies the objectives you need to fulfill to win the game, within the set limit of 13 rounds.
Each round, you choose 3 action cards that you will play in succession. You choose these action cards from your hand of 11 cards. The actions are the following:
- Produce: you pick one resource type shown on the card, and produce those resources on all planets matching that type. Colonies and Starships grant you 1 resource, Factories grant you 2.
- Travel: you may move one of your ships to another system matching the symbol shown on the card. You may peek at undiscovered planets (they start the game face down), but only once (then you must remember them). If you land on an undiscovered planet, it becomes revealed. If you discover an Alien Planet that way, you get one alien artifact, a one-time powerful ability, and may peek at the next Singularity event. You also get an alien artifact whenever you reach the 42 VP threshold.
-Trade: you choose a resource, and can exchange other resources for that resource type with the bank. The first trade requires you to exchange one resource from your supply for one resource of the chosen type from the bank, then each additional trade requires an additional, identical resource of the type you are offering to get one resource unit of the type you have chosen.
-Build: you can spend resources to purchase structures. You may build a Colony if you have a Starship on the planet, or upgrade an existing Colony into a Factory. You may also build a new Starship on a planet that you already occupy. You may also build a Terraformer on a planet with a Colony or a Factory, which immediately grants you 3 victory points.
-Score: you can score VPs according to one of the two scoring conditions mentioned on the card.
At the end of the round, a Singularity event takes place: you draw a Singularity card and carry out its effect. Then, you retrieve your Action cards except the Score ones, that go into their discard pile. Only when all 4 of the Score cards have been discarded can you retrieve the discard pile back into your hand.
The game ends after 13 rounds, at which time you win if you have fulfilled your Mission successfully! An example of such a mission is to get at least 77 Victory Points and have exactly three of each structure in play.