Customer Reviews

Galaxy Trucker

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a board game geek, and one who has convinced their spouse of the value of playing board games, we have played a lot of games. This game was different to so many games in so many ways.

First off, the instructions were a crack-up to read, and the writers definitely had a fun time writing them. We laughed while we read the rules, and it started the game off on in a fun mood for those playing. There were a few areas that the rules were not entirely clear on and we had to just make a house-rule, but overall the rules were clear once the game was started (it even tells you in the rulebook to just start playing and you'll understand it better).

As for the game itself, the concept was unique and fun, and the way the game is played is unique and fun. There are three rounds of play, and each round gets increasingly more complex. The basic premise of the game is to build a ship with component pieces, and then try to succeed at 8 different random adventures. By the time you have all gone through the eight adventures (There are quite a few different adventures, so each game will be different out of sheer randomness), you total up the amount of cash you have. After doing this for three rounds, you total up the amount of cash you have and see who wins.

The randomness in the game comes from the random components you pull to build your ship in the beginning of each round, the adventures that are drawn each round, and how everybody else does building and surviving adventures.

That is a quick summary, but the game offers fun for different types of game players - from speed that helps you build your ship faster (offering different advantages) to strategy (how you can mess up other players or help yourself depending on how you choose to get do the adventures drawn) to some elements of luck ("please don't roll a 7 in this meteor storm since I'm out of batteries and have both of my rockets connected to the battery component in row 7...").

Overall, we spent a good deal of the night laughing and just having fun. Any game that can make you do that gets an 'A' in our opinion. While not perfect, and we have only played it a few games, it is definitely different, fun, and something we are looking forward to playing again!

I'm a fan of European strategy board games like Stone Age, Puerto Rico, and many others. The games I like tend to have a bit more strategic depth than most, so when I saw the name "Galaxy Trucker", it sounded campy and silly and so I avoided it. What a mistake! In fact, it *is* campy and silly, but it's so hilariously funny that you'll be too busy laughing out loud to mind the fact that there isn't a lot of deep strategy involved. I finally played the game last night at the urging of a friend, and immediately bought my copy and started writing this review that same night - it's that good!

The game consists of three increasingly difficult races across the galaxy, each of which takes 20-30 minutes. Before you can race, you need a space ship. But you don't simply get a ship pre-made; you have to construct your own ship out of spare parts. Think "Star Control 2" meets "Pipe Dream". In other words, you get a stream of random ship components and must try to assemble them as best you can under time pressure. Ship components are square tiles, each of which have a function (crew quarters, engines, weapons, etc.) and 1 or more connections on their edges. Some tiles are "dead-ends" (having only 1 connection) making them better suited to the exterior of your ship, while others branch out making them better for the interior of your ship. But, you'll likely get them in the wrong order and have to improvise how you deal with them. Do you reject them and risk another player taking them, or do you put them in storage and risk paying a penalty for not using them? Or, you might get precisely the ship component you want but it has the wrong type of connection. Doh! Unlike Pipe Dream, there are multiple types of connections, and adjacent tiles must have compatible connection types. It is acceptable to leave connections exposed to outer space, but doing so makes your ship more vulnerable. Overall, the ship-building portion of the game strikes the perfect balance between possibilities and difficulties.

Next is the audit. Players check each other's ships for illegal tile placement (and get a good chuckle over how dorky all the ships look). If ship components are not placed correctly, the player must remove components (of his/her choice) until the ship is legal, and must pay a penalty for each scrapped piece. One friend had to remove a quarter of his ship due to a mistake at a critical internal joint, losing his entire forward facing gun batteries! If this sounds like a bummer, it's got a huge silver lining: everyone, including the victim himself, had a great time and couldn't stop laughing about it. This reveals another great strength of Galaxy Trucker: it's the most fun you'll ever have losing a game. In fact, it might even be more fun to lose dramatically than to win. The game is lighthearted enough that you have fun either way, and besides, there's always the next race, when you get to start over with a fresh ship.

The third and final stage is the race itself. Each race consists of a sequence of random events, some good, some bad. You might have to fly through a combat zone, or face pirates, slavers, or meteor showers. Or, you might find planets or derelict ships with treasure to plunder. The player in the lead gets first pick of any treasures you find, but will also be the first to face the pirates and slavers. My personal favorite event is the meteor shower. Each player must survive a barrage of ~8 meteors of different sizes coming from different directions. This frequently results in important components flying off your ship and exposing critical interior sections to outer space. One friend lost half his ship to the worst possible meteor strike, which again just meant that we all couldn't stop laughing about it. If you make it past the finish line (no easy feat!), you get points for what place you come in, plus, there's a bonus for the finishing player with the least damage.

Being a fan of science fiction, I kept being reminded of the pod racing scene in Star Wars 1: fast, furious, with danger around every corner. But science-fiction fandom is not required to enjoy this game. Casual gamers will also likely enjoy Galaxy Trucker for its unique tile-laying gameplay design, which bears some similarities to Tetris and Carcasonne.

Lastly, I will point out two less obvious benefits of this game. There are no individual player turns, which means that all players are actively engaged and having fun all the time. Also, the theme of mayhem and the game's lighthearted nature encourage variability and experimentation via house rules. For instance, maybe give each player a set of hidden tiles they don't have to share, or barter tiles with friends, or auction some tiles, or make the race longer, or add your own race events. You can also get more official options via the game's expansion set, which increases the maximum number of players to 5. (The base game supports 2-4, and plays best with 4 - more people to laugh at and with.)

The game has very few downsides. Rules sticklers may not be totally happy, as several rules are hazy. This isn't a serious problem though because most ambiguities can be easily clarified with a logical house rule, and besides, it fits well with the game's lighthearted nature and openness to variation. Lastly, the game is expensive relative to other board games, and Amazon usually doesn't have the best prices on board games, so you may want to shop around for a better deal.

Galaxy Trucker (GT) is a hilarious light strategy game that is as much fun to lose at as it is to win.

The basics:
1. GT is played over three rounds. At the start of each round, players have a board with a ship outline (different each round) that has their bridge of their ship at its core. Players then simultaneously reach over to a pile of tiles that show ship parts and try to build their ship quickly. Each piece has a different function from carrying cargo and passengers (both human and alien) to engines, shields, and weapons. This is done as quickly as possible as everyone is looking to build their ship with all the components they want while making sure everything connects properly (any components that aren't connected properly fall off and the player pays a penalty).

2. After all the ships are built, the ships are placed in order of completion on a track (it is a bit of a race at this point). The ships then face various random events from pirates to planets that give resources that can be sold off if the ship makes it to the end. Planets and other events that offer some sort of payout come with a delay penalty (players taking the payout moves backwards on the board). Some of the events are "open space" which allows the players to move forward a number of spaces equal to the number of engines their ships have. The detrimental events (pirates, asteroids, etc.) include a bit of luck as dice are rolled and the corresponding ship part is affected, which could cause a loss of a portion of the (or even the entire!) ship.

3. Those ships that survive all the encounters then place at the end of the race and collect the payout for arriving in their designated spot (1rst, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), sell cargo, and pay for any lost portions of their ship.

4. After the 3rd round, the player with the most money wins.

5. The game seats up to 4 people but an expansion can be bought that adds a 5th player.

Thoughts: This is a hilarious game! The rules are written with a humorous twist and are a delight to read. During the game, people will be saying things like "don't hit my engines!" as the dice are rolled to see which parts of the ship are affected. It is a laugh riot even to lose during a round. For example, one player in my gaming group just got horrible rolls that just drilled a hole right through the center of her ship, blowing it up! Another situation was when 1/2 the players were taken out by slavers (have to hand over 5 crew or abandon that leg of the race)! During ship building, you are trying to figure out what you need to get your ship (do you go for that extra engine or more cargo space?) while everyone else is grabbing other tiles. There is no right answer, since you can't build a ship that will handle every situation (not when you're competing with other players trying to equip their ships to the best of their abilities).

Bottom Line: A hilarious and light game that requires some strategic thinking but not much. After a couple plays, this was a "must get" game for me. If you enjoy this game, I'd highly recommend the expansion which adds new events plus allows for some new nasty surprises for your ships to face.

I did my research on boardgamegeek, and decided that this game seemed like it would be a lot of fun. I enjoy Carcassonne, and therefore, the tile laying aspect of this game intrigued me. I was not disappointed when I actually got to play it. Though it is probably better described as a board game version of Tetris, the tile laying aspect of Galaxy Trucker is a lot of fun, especially when you are a perfectionist and trying to use every available space.

However, the game doesn't stop there. The actual trucking phases are a lot of fun too. There is just the right amount of strategy in the tile laying phase to prepare for the random encounters you experience during the actual trucking phase. Bravo to the game makers. I really like Galaxy Trucker, and my wife did too. This will hit the table often in the future.

Galaxy Trucker is an innovative game that is split into two parts - one where you build a ship, and one where you test your ship along with the other players to make a successful trip.

The first part is like a puzzle game where you are competing against the other players for pieces and to be the first one to finish. Each player flips over tiles in a pile to find pieces that they need for their ship. The tiles are placed on a board that indicates the shape of your ship. You'll get bonus points and other benefits if your ship fits together nicely (no open connections). This part of the game is my favorite, because it really tests your puzzle solving skills under pressure. However, if one of the players in your group is a hard-core puzzle solver, it may take a couple of games before the others catch up.

After everyone has finished his or her ship, you get ready to make your trip. Finishing your ship first means you start the journey out in front, and have access to the most money and resources. But be careful! You'll also be the first target for slavers and smugglers, and your opponents can pass you if they have more powerful engines. You'll have to make tough decisions on whether you want to fill up your cargo holds with resources at the beginning, or wait until you find a better reward later. You'll also have to deal with losing pieces from enemy attacks. There's nothing quite so disheartening as losing a cargo hold full of valuable radioactive goods from a laser blast or asteroid - except maybe losing a chunk of your ship because a weak point of your design was hit!

This is an amazing game that has two components that aren't often seen together in games - frantic racing to build your ship, and deep, meaningful decisions to make as you try to finish your journey in one piece!

My husband and I bought this game a year ago and enjoy it. It's very different from the typical strategy games we play, like San Juan, Catan, Race for the Galaxy, etc. It's a creative puzzle building game where you're under the clock to construct and complete your spaceship before your opponents. You can build it however you want, and every creation is different. If you rush and build a poorly designed ship, your ship may later get destroyed while your friends are laughing at/with you. The game is fun and funny if you don't take it too seriously if/when your ship, cargo, and crew start getting destroyed by meteors and enemy fire.

While we enjoy the game when we play it, we don't play it that often. First, it has more than normal setup and cleanup. There are a lot of different types of pieces - ship puzzle pieces, cards, two sets of boards, battery pieces, ship crew pieces, etc. I have to give the game makers credit though, the pieces are well built and cute, and will withstand many plays. The other reason is that the game does have an element of hunting for puzzle pieces under a time constraint. In our leisure time, we like to be more relaxed and have time to carefully craft strategy.

We're glad we own this game. It's a nice departure from the other games we own. Adds a nice diversity in our game-playing. It is funny and silly at the same time, and great when we're in the mood for puzzle building.

The writing is fantastic - reading the pamphlet is hilarious. The game itself is very fun - half the time you don't finish, but who cares? The expansion is practically essential - it adds another player and adventures. While the game is very fun, some of the rules are a little vague or outright difficult (for example, the time limit). However, I found that house-rules always enhance this game - get a little creative. In our case, the timer dictated the time-limit, however, a player could flip it just to screw over his team mates. Very fun. A group of college-aged kids loved it... not sure how well young kids would understand the rules.

This is a great game.

It may seem a bit expensive, but a) there's a lot in the box, and b) it's a lot of fun.

It's kind of like real-time Tetris, but with a point. You quickly build spaceships by rotating and placing very limited pieces, then race them and watch them explode. Who doesn't like watching things explode? The randomness of the racing means you're never quite sure what is going to happen, which keeps everyone on their toes.

My wife and I are avid Euro-gamers - Agricola, Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Puerto Rico, etc. We were looking for something to better engage our 13 and 11 year-old kids, one of which loves the Risk-style attack games and the other who tends to like party/creative games. This and the rave review of the store associate (local store) was our basis for the purchase.

Although the "orange" aliens are more of a brown than orange in our set, the game is well constructed and the pieces are of good quality. There are lots of very small pieces so if you buy this, I would recommend you purchase little baggies to keep it well organized/inventoried.

To avoid re-hashing the same points as other reviews, let me say the other reviews here are pretty much on the mark in terms of this game being campy and silly.

For the price we paid - which was quite a bit more than Amazon - I was expecting a game with a bit more rich-ness. The game is straightforward with not as many dimensions as I would have expected. The deck of cards are varied in terms of attack directions, cargo/planet options, etc, but the type of cards are relatively limited.

My wife and I played this with another couple who are also huge Euro-gamers, and they were left wanting after 2 of the 3 rounds (we didn't finish and moved on to Puerto Rico to finish out the evening).

Our kids certainly enjoyed the game, although my daughter (the creative gamer) liked it the most. But, after all the card events (especially the attacks), she seemed to lose interest in re-play.

The game devices include a time limit (1 minute hourglass) that gets turned over several times until a final time when everyone has to stop building their ships. I found this element very frustrating. As a result, I built very haphazardly in order to complete mine in time. I'm sure this is the intent of the time limit, but as a strategy gamer, it's an element that is more frustrating than fun.

I would recommend this game to a family or group who has a general interest in silly games and who has the steel to deal with loss of critical ship components and losing the game based strictly on luck of the draw. For some kids this is a deal-breaker.

I would keep the game, but no one in the family seems to truly "love" it. And since there are so many game options these days, why keep a game we don't absolutely love? So, as for us, we are going to return this game for store credit and get something else.