Starship Captains

After the heavy and unhealthy stuff, I thought I would go for something light and quick. Starship Captains initially looks like a decent light gateway worker-placement game, but it ultimately becomes one of those games that makes you wonder how such a respectable idea ended up so meh.

Its main hook is the crew queue: an idea that genuinely has the potential to make your decisions interesting. Rather than being just another exercise in “place a worker, get a thing,” there is at least the promise that managing your crew will give your choices some weight.

In practice, though, the gameplay unfolds without tension and without the payoff you expect from that system. The mechanisms are there, players make their choices, but the game never develops the rhythm or spark that would make that interaction matter. It feels as though it wants to float in Arnak’s wake, except it is light-years away from getting there—another epic dud in hyperspeed, just without the speed.

If you do not own Alien Frontiers, Scoville, or another nice gateway game, fine: it may keep young children creatively occupied. For me, though, it was an interesting crew queue trapped inside a game far more bland than it deserved to be.