Living Planet

Living Planet is one of those rare Kickstarters I had somehow missed, then found on the table and immediately regretted missing. It feels considered, substantial, and built around the faintly alarming prospect of everyone settling in to drain a planet dry.

At its heart, the game is about pursuing that extraction, with each round returning to the same useful question: how much can you take before the whole arrangement turns on you? It does not need much ornament to make that work. Greed is perfectly capable of supplying the drama.

Most of the tension arrives through market funerals, which is always a promising sign. You watch the position sour, you feel earlier choices gain weight, and the planet stops being a distant board concept; it becomes the place where everyone is trying to get something out before they are left holding nothing.

The production is lavish, perhaps a touch too lavish: some elements are harder to pick apart in the artwork than they ought to be. That is a small cost in an otherwise well-made game, and Living Planet is quietly excellent for anyone who appreciates a proper economic wreck after a long Tuesday at work.