Joined in 2023 
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It’s great fun and a clever puzzle managing which crew you want to use. The clear iconography and simple colour coding combined with multiple ways to manipulate the available ensigns with commanders allows for some clever strategies to be formed. Technology & It’s Uses
The game’s manual provides fun flavor text for each specific possible score from 21-75. 0-20 is summarized with something to the effect of “you are terrible at board games”, and I agree—it feels like it is almost impossible to score less than 25 points. The lowest score I have seen is 28 points, but the highest score across seven plays was 39. At the bottom of your ship is a cargo hold with limited slots to hold treasures (and damage) you will receive throughout the course of the game. As the game progresses these spaces will fill up, with either defeated pirate ships or artefacts you collect. The vibrant galaxy holds many peculiar mysteries to explore and uncover! Skillfully manage your team of cadets, ensigns, androids, and officers to make the most of their unique abilities—all while balancing essential ship roles, completing unique missions, and upgrading your ship with powerful engine-building alien technology. I would contend that games like Starship Captains, similar to First Rat and other very approachable recent designs, are fantastic ways to introduce gamers to the hobby. The concepts in Starship Captains are easy to grasp, yet for experienced gamers there is still a lot to initially enjoy when trying to min/max each turn. In Starship Captains up to 4 players compete for reputation and glory across the galaxy in this adventurous euro game.
What game is like Starship Captains?
Medals allow players to train any of their cadets or ensigns to another color; pay three medals and you can upgrade an ensign to a commander, which allows for the commander to do double actions or command a crew member of the same color to come out of the waiting area onto the ready room of your ship. Ensigns can be promoted to commanders by spending 3 medals. These upgraded units can be used to activate a room twice or bring across a matching coloured ensign from the queue into the ready room, allowing for more actions on future turns. The small coloured ships consist of 3 small cardboard pieces that need to be folded over and clipped together. Folding these small cardboard bits over and sliding them together can be risky as they could be damaged rather easily. Cadets can’t activate rooms (except for repair) but they can be promoted to an ensign if players spend medals, this allows for players to instantly gain an ensign of a colour they need by spending this resource.
These cards can grant permanent bonuses, become rooms to activate with ensigns or be the limited omega tech which provide extra reputation at the end of the game if certain conditions are met. Think you can handle being the captain of your very own starship? Time to find out! In this new game from publisher CGE, players will take command of their own garden trowel-shaped starship that will have you thinking about Trekking across space. Your workers are cadets (gray figurines which represent unskilled labor, only capable of taking repair actions when first recruited) and ensigns. Ensigns are specialized by color: red ensigns fly the ship, yellow ensigns coordinate weapons systems, and blue ensigns are your technical experts.By obtaining these cards you can create your own action board. The more cards you have the more symbols can pop up. Instead of repairing once on your ship when you activate a room, you might find a card that lets you repair twice, or repair and move in one action. Starship Captains has clearly had a lot of love put into its production. It’s disappointing, then, that the overall experience doesn’t quite hang together. Starship Captains is a worker placement(ish) and resource management(ish) board game that will have you trying to earn points over the game’s four rounds. This light euro game plays from 1-4 players and takes about an hour or so to play. Gameplay Overview: The production is mostly a winner. The best tactile part of the game comes when you need to slide your crew members around a small, indented wheel at the top of your player board. Even better: only crew members fit in that wheel. Try to slide an android meeple around this wheel, and it doesn’t fit, a reminder that androids—a wild worker type—have to be discarded when completing missions. Love it! Room techs can be activated as normal rooms later by a matching crew member, and each of these unique cards give your crew better options beyond the four basic rooms you have on the bridge of your ship
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