Science Fiction

It is the late 26th century. Earth is recovering from a catastrophic explosion that exterminated the majority of the population centuries ago and made most of the surface uninhabitable due to unearthly weather conditions. The surviving humans organized along four radically different ideologies, called Paths, to rebuild the world as they see fit: Harmony, Dominance, Progress, and Salvation. Followers of the four Paths live in a fragile peace, but in almost complete isolation next to each other. Their only meeting point is the last major city on Earth, now just known as the Capital.

By powering up the mysterious Time Rifts that opened in the wake of the cataclysm, each Path is able to reach back to specific moments in their past. Doing so can greatly speed up their progress, but too much meddling may endanger the time-space continuum. But progress is more important than ever before: if the mysterious message arriving through the Time Rift is to be believed, an even more terrible cataclysm is looming on the horizon: an asteroid bearing the mysterious substance called Neutronium is heading towards Earth. Even stranger, the scientists show that the energy signature of the asteroid matches the explosion centuries ago...

Anachrony features a unique two-tiered worker placement system. To travel to the Capital or venture out to the devastated areas for resources, players need not only various specialists (Engineers, Scientists, Administrators, and Geniuses) but also Exosuits to protect and enhance them — and both are in short supply.

The game is played in 4-7 turns, depending on the time when the looming cataclysm occurs — unless, of course, it is averted! The elapsed turns are measured on a dynamic timeline. By powering up the Time Rifts, players can reach back to earlier turns to supply their past "self" with resources. Each Path has a vastly different objective that rewards it with a massive amount of victory points when achieved. The Paths' settlements will survive the impact, but the Capital will not. Whichever Path manages to collect most points will be the new seat for the Capital, thus the most important force left on the planet...

The Space Race was a lie.

Look, it's not that the moon landing was faked. It happened. Neil hates the conspiracy theories. The lie is that we ever wanted to go to the moon. We needed a spectacle to show the people. To justify the massive budgets. The agencies.

Neil stepped on a rock 239,000 miles from Earth. Big deal. I stepped on an exoplanet circling Ursae Majoris 18 months earlier. It's a one-way trip -- so there ain't any going home.

No ticker tape parade for me, but that's ok. I'm here for my country. See, the Russians beat us here by a few months. Japanese showed up a few weeks after us. We'll colonize this planet for America. Because there isn't a choice...

Godspeed is a mid-weight worker placement game of extra-terrestrial colonization for 2-5 players with a 60-90 minute playtime. -- From the back of the box

In Godspeed, players play as scientists from one of 5 nations: the USA, Japan, Soviet Union, the European Nations, or India. The game is played in 10 rounds, each with four phases.

High Council Phase -- This is a negotiation phase where Nations will convene to decide how they will respond to an event occurring back on Earth or on the Exoplanet. The top card is drawn from the High Council deck. Nations then decide to respond to the event by assigning the specified Team Member to the event, keeping them from use during the rest of the round. If all Nations respond then everyone gets the bonus. If not, there's a penalty for those that ignored it.
Supply Depot Phase -- This is an auction phase where Nations bid on Supply Depot cards or the first player marker. Players choose cards in the order of their bids. The player with the highest bid may take a second delivery.
Action Phase -- This is a worker placement phase. Nations place Team Members in Action Spaces to take various actions and earn prestige.
Resolution Phase -- In this phase, the Nations produce new resources and return their Team Members home.

Points -- Prestige is gained on 4 tracks (Defense, Exploration, Commerce, and Infrastructure) and your position on these tracks gains you points at the end of the game. You may also gain points by achieving Civilization Milestones (only 1 Nation may claim each Milestone), completing Lunar Season scoring cards (any number of Nations may complete these), building ancient XenoRelics, completing special objective cards, and for left over resources.

The Nation with the most victory points wins.

The Cosmic Citizenship Council has announced it will allow two new alien species to join its ranks, but they forgot to make two copies of the filing form — which means that only one species can join! Now, the two candidates must battle for control of the planets to determine who deserves the right to become a Certified Civilization.

Cosmic Encounter Duel is a competitive standalone two-player game in the Cosmic Encounter universe in which you and your closest frenemy race to be the first to control five planets. Each of twenty-seven alien species comes equipped with its own unique abilities that play with the game mechanisms in some way, offering you an edge in the fight, e.g., the Cheater, who can reserve an additional tactic that they can put toward any fight in the game — as long as their opponent doesn't call out how they're trying to "cheat". How your game of Cosmic Encounter Duel plays out will inevitably be affected by which powers each dueling species has and how they play off of one another.

In addition to your unique species and its ability, you have twenty spaceships to traverse the cosmos and maintain control over the five planets you need to become a Certified Civilization. As long as you have a ship on a planet, you have control of it, even if your opponent also has ships there and you must share control. You can deploy these ships to fight in duels, use them to act as reinforcements, or draw them back for a tactful retreat. Just don't lose them to the Warp or let them be claimed by the black void between the stars and end up lost in space forever!

To play, players draw and resolve Destiny cards, which come in three types: Discovery cards, Event cards, and Refresh cards. Discovery cards have you and your opponent discover a planet and duel for control, while Event cards ask you both to test your mettle against a variety of challenges and cosmic calamities, and Refresh cards offer a respite in which you can recover ships, gather allies, and ultimately prepare for another clash.

At the start of a duel, you and your opponent secretly decide how many ships to send to the planet, and once they have been deployed, you can call upon any befriended envoys. To plan your attack, you secretly choose a card from your hand and a standing tactic from your collection to either guard your ships or blast your opponent's ships, then you fight, sending ships to face-off for control of the planet until the winner claims their prize while the loser retreats. After you and your opponent resolve a Destiny card, you check the icon on the bottom of the card to determine which deck to draw from next, then the race continues.

—description from the publisher

In the co-operative trick-taking game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, the players set out as astronauts on an uncertain space adventure. What about the rumors about the unknown planet about? The eventful journey through space extends over 50 exciting missions. But this game can only be defeated by meeting common individual tasks of each player. In order to meet the varied challenges, communication is essential in the team. But this is more difficult than expected in space.

With each mission, the game becomes more difficult. After each mission, the game can be paused and continued later. During each mission, it is not the amount of tricks, but the right tricks at the right time that count.

The team wins only if every single player is successful in fulfilling their tasks.

The game comes with 50 missions. Three more missions were published in spielbox 2/2020

It all started when the Imperium seized control of Earth and declared martial law, sentencing those who opposed their will to immediate death or worse fates. It seemed as if all hope was lost, but before their edict could be carried out, a group of defectors managed to wrest control of the Ridback, a Class–II jumpship, and flee with as many of the condemned as they could save.

It has been close to seven years that these refugees from Earth have called the Ridback home, and finally the crew has found a planet with promise. They have managed to establish outposts around it, and now the great burden falls on you to expand these small “alphas” into a full-fledged Beta Colony. Success will mean that your people will be able to begin life anew on exoplanet 14 Bos c, or, as they have renamed it, "Victus" — Latin for "way of life".

In Beta Colony, you play as one of five Directors working to create prosperous colonies. If you earn the most Confidence Points (CP), you will be elected as the first leader of Victus. Players will collect the needed building materials to produce and erect colonization pods – Defense Stations, Science and Tech Towers, Living Quarters, Agriculture Pods, and Water Treatment Centers – on the varied terrain of Victus.

Using a unique "rolldell" mechanism (dice + rondel), Beta Colony is a mid-weight strategic game for players of all levels. Each round, the start player rolls their set of four colored dice. All other players duplicate that roll with their own dice. Players take two actions each round, one action at a time in turn order, with each action using two dice. Players will use one die to move and one die to activate the location to which they moved. Die color and value affect how each of the seven unique locations are used. Players will build colonization pods at each of three colonies to gain the confidence of the settlers and lead them to glory!

—description from the publisher