Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon

About two years after the trip to Arta, I returned to suckalot base, this time with my regular group. I had already played it twice and, although the mechanisms seemed logical to me, I had not retained particularly good memories. To be fair, that often happens to me when a game is explained to me instead of my reading it on my own first. Here, though, there is something else as well: much like in the more recent SETI, the initial selection of corporations carries a great deal of weight in how the game lands.

A set of three corporations enters at setup, and they are not merely decorative framing around the core rules. They substantially affect what kind of game will emerge and, ultimately, how enjoyable the journey will be. The flow of the mechanisms makes sense and did not strike me as confusing; you simply need to understand what this particular set brings to the table, rather than assume every game will have the same character.

As the game progresses, there is enough karate between players that you are not playing in a sterile bubble next to one another. There is conflict and pressure, but in my best experience I did not feel that someone was taking me for a ride merely because I happened to end up on the wrong side of an unfair stroke of luck. The interaction is present and matters, without leaving the sense that the game was decided by one random blow.

The third encounter was much better and made me revise my old 7 upward. This is not a game I will judge independently of the corporations that came to the table, because they genuinely colour the experience strongly. With a good set, though, Shackleton Base is a full heavy euro that I definitely want to see on the table again soon.