Galaxy Trucker

I slow things down a little and turn to the truckers of space. Galaxy Trucker was never one of those boxes I looked at with particular eagerness, but I thought its space spectacle might intrigue my successor. The battle against consoles, after all, never really stops.

At the table, the game has you build your spaceship out of parts and then send it on its journey. There is a pleasantly playful messiness to the idea: you look at your construction and wait to see whether what you put together can survive what space has in store for it.

The experience rests precisely on that move from building to being tested. Players prepare their ships and then see how their plans hold up against the mishaps of the route; when the laughter arrives, it seems to come more from the disasters and the shared spectacle than from anything that won me over strategically.

Unfortunately, as the Exodus song says, “Like Father, like Son.” The kid would not touch it, and the second time around he got a little tired of it too. I cannot say I was especially upset about that. I am keeping one reservation: perhaps we should try it with four players, in case more people produce the lark it needs. Otherwise, I will probably launch it to wherever meteors go.