Galaxy Trucker Review

It’s like building a beautiful snowman, and then watching it melt.

Posted on 2/4/2017 by Tim Rice

2-4 Players
Ages 13+
Playtime: 60 minutes
Designer: Vlaada Chvatil
Publisher: Czech Games Edition

Would anyone like to play a game about truckers? No? What about truckers that fly ridiculous spaceships across the galaxy, dodge meteors, battle space pirates, and visit uncharted planets all in the pursuit of cube fortune? YES.

In Galaxy Tucker, players race to build a spaceship out of spare parts and then test their creation against the many harsh hazards of the galaxy. Sounds awesome! The catch is that these spaceships are often not quite up to industry standards… In fact, the chances that you make it to your destination in one piece are slim. Very slim indeed. Let’s get started!

Gameplay

Galaxy Trucker comes with 8 two-sided spaceship boards (4 Stage 1 ships, 4 Stage 2 ships, 4 Stage 3 ships, and 4 Stage 3A ships). It also comes with a central board, a bunch of ship component tiles, credit tokens, three adventure card decks, crew figures, battery tokens, wooden cubes (cargo), 2 dice, a timer, and a few other bits.

To start, each player takes a Stage 1 ship board and puts their starting component tile on it. The rest of the component tiles are then mixed up face down in the center of the table, and three piles are drawn from the Stage 1 adventure deck, accessible to all players.

Once everything is ready, someone flips the timer and everyone begins frantically drawing component tiles from the middle (with one hand) and building their first ship. When a player draws a tile, he or she can choose to either place it on their ship (if it fits) or place it back in the supply face-up. There are several different kinds of tiles to choose from:

Cabins hold crew members, allowing your ship to have a bigger crew.
Engines make your ship faster (obviously).
Cannons can protect you from various dangers and earn you victories.
Batteries allow you to power various special components such as double engines, double cannons, and shields.
Shields protect two sides of your ship from certain hazards.
Cargo holds are where you put all the treasures you find on your journey (there are also special cargo holds where you can put coveted red cubes).
Structural modules have valuable connectors that help you attach other components.
Life Support Modules allow you to keep aliens on your ship. Purple aliens improve your cannon strength and orange aliens improve your engine strength.

There are a lot of little rules about which components can connect where and there are certain restrictions associated with certain components, but I won’t go into too much detail here.

During the building phase, the players can also look at a portion of the cards that were set aside so that they can anticipate some of the future hazards that they might encounter while they are building (but this gives them less time to actually build the ship).

The first player to finish building their ship grabs a place marker and flips the timer again. Now the pressure is on because every other player has to finish their ship before the timer runs out. Not only that, but it’s an advantage to finish quickly because it determines the starting positions in the next phase.

Once everyone is finished or the timer runs out, the building phase is over, and everyone’s ships are inspected by their neighbor. If a player accidentally makes an illegal placement (it happens quite often), he or she is going to have to remove one or more components until the ship is legal.

After everyone has a legal ship, it’s time to truck across the galaxy. An adventure deck is formed from the cards that were set aside at the beginning (along with a few random, unseen cards) and the players will flip and resolve cards until the deck runs out. There are several different varieties of encounter cards:

Open Space lets everyone crank their engines and race their ships forward.
Planets are where you can get valuable cargo.
Abandoned Ships let you trade crew members for credits.
Abandoned Stations allow you to get cargo if your crew is big enough.
Meteoric Swarms can threaten your ship from any direction. You can sometimes stop them if you have a well-structured ship, shields, and/or cannons pointing toward them, but be prepared to lose some components if you encounter these.
Smugglers, Slavers, and Pirates will steal your cargo, crew, or shoot at you if you don’t have enough cannons. If you defeat them, however, you often get a reward.
Combat Zones test your ship against your opponents. If your ship is the weakest in a certain area (such as crew size, engine strength, or cannon strength), you must incur a penalty.
There are a few other special events as well (most of them are quite painful).

Once the deck is exhausted, bonus credits are awarded for beating other players to the destination (or simply arriving at all) and for having the most intact post-journey ship (the least exposed connectors). Players can also sell any cargo they still have at this time, and they also have to pay for any lost components.

After that, a new round begins. There are either three or four rounds per game. The ships get bigger and the adventures get longer each round. Any player that has more than zero credits at the end of the final round wins (but of course it’s preferable to have the most).

Design

Galaxy Trucker is anything but ordinary, the whole experience is unlike anything I’ve ever played before. The mechanics that go into building the spaceship are engaging on so many levels. It's a puzzle because connecting all the necessary components efficiently is already a challenge, but when you add in the real-time racing aspect it creates incredible tension and excitement that few games can match.

It might seem like this process is too random, since you don’t always have control of what components you draw, but this isn’t really the case at all. The game is packed with strategy, but it’s a different kind of strategy that requires fast-paced thinking and extreme focus. Every player has the option of looking at most of the cards that are going to come up, so once you know what you’re doing, you can prepare for the specific adventure deck of the round. There are so many little choices while building (which components to use, where to put them, how fast to build, what compromises to make, etc.) that make skill a much more important factor than luck.

This is actually one of the problems with the game; an experienced player will almost always win against a first-time player because it takes practice to get good. It’s also a pain to teach to new players because there are a lot of rules associated with building the ships, and at least one of those rules will almost always be forgotten. For those two reasons, I almost never bring this one out with people who have never played it before, and that’s a shame.

The player interaction in the game comes from the racing aspect. For the first couple of plays it might feel like a solitary exercise, but before long you realize that ignoring what your opponents are doing is a mistake. Being aware of the tempo and adjusting your strategy accordingly is important, but also knowing how well your opponents are doing in certain areas and where you can seize advantages is just as important.

The adventure phase of the game is frustrating for some people, because too often they work so hard on their ship just to watch it fail miserably. If you’re the sort of person that can’t stand random negative effects screwing up your progress, this is not the game for you. For me though, I love watching my ship stand up to (or sometimes get destroyed by) all the crazy obstacles in the galaxy. It’s much more satisfying to build an engine and have it tested than to just build an engine until the game ends.

I’ve played the game at all player counts, and it always works well, but the experiences are slightly different because component scarcity becomes a much bigger factor with more players. With two players, both players can usually build much higher quality ships than they would be able to with four players.

The theme is brilliant. Who doesn’t want to build their own spaceship? It is ingrained into the game so well that there’s no way it could ever be rethemed without changing most of the core mechanics.

Presentation

The art style is cute, colorful, and a bit cartoony. I like that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The graphic design is also top-notch; the tiles are designed in a way that eliminates ambiguity. For a game that relies heavily on visual elements like this one, the presentation is extremely important, and they really nailed it.

The cards are great because you hardly ever have to read anything to understand what they do (after playing once or twice) because the symbols are designed so well. In fact, all the components are stellar. Except for those tiny batteries that run all over the place every time I try to put them back in the bag…but of course that’s a minor thing.

I don’t normally enjoy reading rulebooks, but man, these rules are the exception. Not only does it explain the game well, but it’s entertaining, and they actually put effort into the visuals. As far as I’m concerned, this is the gold standard for instruction manuals.

Another thing that I love about it (I know this is kind of a weird thing to care about) is that the box is the perfect size to fit all the components. Most games make the box way too big for the amount of components that you get, but that certainly isn’t the case here. Everything fits nice and snug, and there’s more room on my shelf for other games.

Overall Impression

Galaxy Trucker reminds me of why I love this hobby so much. It’s one of those games where simply thinking about playing it gets me excited. It provides complete engagement and immersion, and it prioritizes pure fun over anything else. This game pushes the limits of what a board game can be, and it’s proof that risky and experimental designs can pay off.

It’s not a game that everyone is going to like, but I think it’s a game that every gamer should at least try, because it’s truly a rare and one-of-a-kind experience. The game is layered, creative, innovative, attractive, unique, replayable, thematic, and it deserves my first perfect score.