Starship Interstellar

I went in expecting very little. The rulebook is solid but demanding; it needs examples, it needs concentration, and a teach will readily run past forty minutes if the whole table has not done the reading. Then the game starts doing its work, and the initial suspicion begins to look a bit silly.

At heart, this is honest action selection. Players choose how to contribute towards the mothership intended to save humanity, while the sun gradually drags everything towards the centre. You are not simply taking an action and waiting for your next turn; there are enough neat wrinkles that you keep watching both the board and the people around it.

The best wrinkle is the pass token. Pass early and your eventual bonus improves as everyone else carries on playing, so you choose when to leave the round while the other players, rather inconveniently for them, help build your reward. You sit there, watch them make their moves, and enjoy each action that is not yours a little more. Lovely. Until they do it to you.

A first four-player game can comfortably take three or four hours, perhaps more, yet Starship Interstellar does not become a slog or require a neurological examination afterwards. Our score race remained tight almost to the end, and the post-game discussion was full of possible openings and strategies. The KS expansions also look promising, with Antimatter seeming the most compelling of them.

It is a demanding game with a difficult way in, but it rewards a group willing to give it the time — which is considerably better than I expected.