Perhaps more family friendly than Diplomacy, but not without its domestic challenges. Karen and I played with our daughter and her boyfriend.
Not sure this game is going to photograph well.
Play really tells a story and it will be hard to capture all the excitement.
There are fifteen turns in which to fulfil our individual objectives...
We awake and start exploring the ship.
I'm the captain (blue).
Karen is the mechanic (orange)
Zoe is the scout (purple)
Tom is the soldier (red)
I have gone off the check the engines are okay.
The others are searching rooms for gear and information as to function.
The supplied miniatures are exquisite, but crying out to be painted.
Four turns have now elapsed..
Fires have broken out in some rooms
and there is a lot of disturbing noise,
but no aliens.
The mechanic is keen to find where the ship is heading. Earth, I hope.
All engines are functional.
But there are some extraterrestrial lifeforms in the hibernation chamber.
Nasty!
It's not easy to know what to do.
I'm just trying to keep my crew alive.
The aliens are attacking the crew in multiple locations
and fires are still out of control.
I've made it to the fire control room and trying to help the mechanic battle the alien
Time is running out.
At least the fires have been supressed.
The soldier should be able to deal with that alien in the door control room.
The soldier has trapped me in a room with an alien,
but karma sees an alien take a fancy to him.
The mechanic has been infected and is trying some self-medication
but is being hampered by another alien.
The scout is busy collecting samples.
In an exciting finish, the mechanic made it to hibernation.
The scout, after successfully researching some alien corpses (aided by the captain)
has also gone into hibernation.
The soldier tried to get to hibernation but triggered an alien.
The captain fought off the alien, but it was too late for them to go into hibernation.
So the captain and solider perished and the mechanic and scout escaped, but both had been infected. In a dramatic bit of card drawing the infection proved to be nonfatal and they lived.
The ship returned to earth fulfilling the mechanic's objective.
The scout had researched the aliens thus fulfilling her objective.
In a Pyrrhic victory the soldier had made sure Player One did not survive.
And the poor old captain, me, Player One, died trying to save himself and at least one of his crew.
Lots of fun, which is important as it is a long game (took us six hours).
Each player starts with two possible objectives and has to choose one when the first alien appears. I had a choice between eliminate Player 2 or save myself and at least one other crew member. I went for the latter objective obviously as Karen was Player Two. Tom on the other hand had a dilemma: eliminate Player One or Player Two. He made the right move in selecting the former.
