Beyond the Sun

Beyond the Sun is one of those games that loses none of its shine on the table as time goes by. The recent session also served as an introduction for a new convert, went wonderfully, and reminded me why this title still excites me so much.

At its core, the experience revolves around developing your company and the choices opened up through technology. The teaching game worked very well without losing the sense that your decisions are building something meaningful from round to round.

The interaction is not presented here as an argument across the table, but it emerges from the shared framework of development and from how each player makes use of the available options. What I want now is the full advanced game: after enough plays, the basic vanilla corporations feel like the thinner version of an otherwise rich experience.

That is not a criticism of the game; it is simply the natural evolution of a relationship with a title that still has things to show me. I am also curious whether we will ever get tired of it before trying the tech market variant even once, but honestly, it never seems to sit idle long enough for that to happen. For me, Beyond the Sun remains high among my favourites and is a game that should be in every collection.

Updated session

More than a year after the first play, my opinion has not changed: the game still rocks hard. The only meaningful shift is that I now clearly prefer the advanced boards and have no desire to return to the basic corporations. That is why the online version, although serious work seems to have gone into it, feels noticeably poorer to me without those boards—and it is a major reason we do not play it more often.