1. I must admit, it didn’t take long for me to become completely uninterested in this game. I think it was from the point before we even started playing the game. I was last to choose my Captain, which meant I was first to choose my Ship. Excited to see what the difference was between the Ships in the game and to try and assess these differences to make a choice in a game that I’ve never played was going to be difficult. Actually though, the easiest decision one could ever make. Why you may ask? Because they are all exactly the same! What is the point in choosing one? How in any way does this balance the fact that I choose my captain last? Well at least you can make a good decision about your starting location based on your mission cards.... Wrong again, you need to choose where you start before you get your mission cards. The plethora of pointless and mundane decisions this game has to offer hits the ground running really early.
2. There is no interaction on any meaningful level between players whatsoever. The whole time I was playing I was thinking we might as well all be playing this game solo each with our own separate copy as it would have been a lot more fun (because it would have saved many hours of downtime and got the experience over and done with much quicker). To me, the purpose of playing a board game is to interact with people. If I don’t want that interaction I can watch a movie, play a computer game, read a book, whatever. I want interaction, this game has none.
3. For a game that is essentially about absolutely nothing except theme and luck, the game is ridiculously complex (with really poorly written rules). In fact I don’t think there is literally anything at all you can do in the game that doesn’t involve drawing random cards or rolling dice (or both). This game would have been so much more fun if much of the complexity was stripped away. At its core this game is nothing but an elaborate snakes and ladders with a lot of theme and a lot of unnecessary rules and components pasted over the top.
4. The Downtime. There is so much of it! Whilst you’re waiting for other players to have their turn there is literally nothing you can do. No planning for your turn because of the amount of luck involved in anything renders planning useless (note it’s pretty much even useless to plan your own turn at the beginning of your own turn there is just so much luck involved).
5. You can roll more than 6 on a six sided die. 884
The idea that if you roll a 6 you roll the die again and add the values together is completely stupid, and makes the game incredibly luck driven. To fail 3 tests in a row where I needed to roll 2 or higher on a six sided die is very frustrating. To see an opponent need 10 or higher on a six sided die to pass a test and achieve this invokes a different emotion entirely!
6. You draw a random card to resolve movement for each space you move. 6 spaces, that’s 6 random events! Absolutely crazy. What’s more you can be shafted by one of these random movements cards during another players turn. To further matters, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Position your ship a few spaces from one of the two ships you want to avoid? Makes sense right as they’d need to draw multiple cards and move multiple spaces to get to you? Wrong! There are cards that can move these ships to any space on the board, literally.
7. So many pointless rules and components. Fuel – readily available and cheap, and you start with a bunch of it. This game would basically play no different functionally if it didn’t exist in the game. Ditto for Parts. The same could be said about most of the games components. Why all those Decks of cards? Does it really add any depth to the game (or do they just add complexity)?
8. To summarise my game. My first turn it is completely obvious the most efficient course of action, so I make no decisions and do that (note: this is a running theme for every turn the entire game). Before my second turn I got completely shafted by a random event card on someone else’s turn. Rendering me unable to complete my missions and needing to essentially start over. Fast forward a few rounds. I have just failed 3 random tests in a row where in each of them I needed to roll a 2 or higher. I have already long given up on this game and am not paying any attention whatsoever, just begging that someone will hurry up and win the game. I take all my remaining turns as quickly as possible doing as little as possible. So I try to complete a mission that requires me to ‘misbehave’ (the pinnacle of total randomness this game has to offer). 884