I stumbled upon a Discord channel organizing game sessions and discussing the next stages of game development through a buddy of mine, who's also a Lacerda playtester. Along with two other netizens, we joined the crew moderated by a host already familiar with the game, and it was a base game session, no expansions, but also no setup for beginners (meaning the tiles were already shuffled, no introductory variant). Since Galactic Cruise isn't available in physical form yet, we made use of the fantastic Tabletop Simulator, which had the latest versions of components loaded, and that's what I base my impressions on below.
THEME
In the game, we take on the role of travel industry representatives who organize flights to various places in space and back. The manual, which I had a chance to glance at just now, consists of basically a paragraph, a few sentences, so there's no point in trying to elaborate any further. And I guess it's not needed; space travel tours are already an exciting foundation for a game, and since we won't even read where exactly our customers are going (planets? orbit?), there's no need to inquire about details 😃
RULES
The game is intimidating at first contact, but it's really just a regular worker placement based on preparing all the necessary elements to launch the rocket sequence into space. So during our turns, we have to acquire the engine and ship nose we're interested in (a one-time bonus + victory points every time we launch the machine into space), segments placed between them, which will create seating for our thrill-seeking clientele (first as blueprints, based on which we later build the rocket section), we have to designate the destination of the journey, entice tourists with ads to choose our flight (read - buy meeples in the appropriate color), and make sure we have all the necessary resources for the launch. And you could say that's all there is to it, the accurate choice of a tile or a little man during the assembly of our tour, because the more synergy we manage to create with certain choices (orange seats for orange guys), the more points each rocket launch will bring us. During the game, you'll be able to prepare up to three spaceships, so engines that give VP, the more often you launch them, the better for you. The whole thing lasts three rounds, but the length of each of them may vary because it depends on the pace at which players, deliberately or not, will fulfill the game's objectives (e.g., each launch is a push forward in the round's progress, just like placing a certain number of development wheels on the board, or having suitably diverse seats in rocket segments). We have scoring between rounds, something will drip during their gameplay, plus a big tally at the end of the game, so expect scores over 100 points even during the first playthrough. I suspect that even making totally chaotic choices won't leave you with zero points, provided, of course, that you even launch the poorest spacecraft; here we're showered with VP like in good Feld productions. The whole thing is packaged in micro-rules and exceptions, but it's not a heavy euro, although it does everything to pretend to be one. I rate the rules difficulty at about 3.5/5.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Today, perhaps the hottest name in the market is responsible for the visual side, Midas among graphic designers, Mr. Ian O'Toole. I myself own several titles that this author co-created; I consider him an excellent artist, and often it's his contribution to the game that prevents me from removing a position from my shelf (I'm not convinced about Voidfall, but Pipeline has already disappeared from my collection). Of course, the game hasn't been released yet, but I was assured that what I saw is basically the final version of Galactic Cruise, and I must say I'm disappointed. The box is great, the player board also looks cool, the rocket segments are intriguing, but the main board is just dull. Space tourism, and we see concrete blocks and tacky trees, the color scheme and design all around also remind more of a prototype than a final product. If it wasn't for the cover, I would never guess what the game is about, so either there was a lack of imagination or funds. An additional drawback for me is the number of symbols and icons, which is also Ian O'Toole's trademark. I know most people think differently, but personally, I'm already tired of his insistence on translating the entire manual into symbols and printing them like hieroglyphics on the board. The idea of creating a kind of language, such a pictorial script, is interesting, as long as it's a readable language, but in Voidfall, for example, the player gets about 4 A4 pages of translations of what they see in a drawn form on the board. Galactic Cruise shares this problem; there's too much of it, and it artificially raises the entry threshold, Ian O'Toole increasingly pretends to add at least half a point to the difficulty of the title he's working on. I understand that complex euro games are drool-inducing goods (also for me), but not if this complexity is a consequence of non-intuitive graphic solutions. Instead of depth of rules, we have difficulty in understanding what's actually happening on the board. A big disappointment and only 2.5/5.
COMPONENTS
From what I've seen in videos of those who played the physical version of the game, it looks great. There's nothing to complain about; after all, the game is Kickstarted, it's about delivering the highest quality material.
INTERACTION
You could force yourself to say that there is, but what kind of interaction is that? I love worker placements because they naturally narrow down the choices and force players into a race for the best spots on the board. But here, we can use places available through other players' development cogs without too high a cost (and later even for free), we can also remove workers in different colors from locations without any repercussions and replace them with our own, which is actually even beneficial for the one we just removed from the board. There are a few shared mission goals, but most of the gameplay takes place separately. Honestly, playing with 3 people, I never cared for a moment what they were doing, how I could disrupt them, because I think there aren't even any tools for that. Whenever you lack something, you can always get it one way or another, so you're not limited by others' actions in any way. This also results in a runaway leader problem, i.e., a lack of the ability to stop the one who flies too far ahead on the victory points track. It might not be entirely like playing solitaire alone at the table, but... in 90% I think it is. 1.5/5
PROS
I like the theme and the game's cover, the first impression after looking at the board is also very good, especially if like me, you enjoy learning new rules, mechanics, and doing something I call "cracking the game's code". The reputation track works great, which we can (and will!) use as a source of resources, money, or ads, by moving back a certain number of spaces on it - the most interesting solution in the game. The components look cool in the video materials, and the manual is okay.
CONS
Lack of interaction, simplicity of rules hidden behind the number of rules that raise the entry threshold but do not deepen the essence of the gameplay. It's a typical point salad, its logic basically comes down to assembling tourists in seat colors and rocket heads to meet the conditions for gaining victory points that suit us best. Everything else is just shenanigans to get that one fuel, ad, and above all, to launch our rockets as often as possible; we're basically doing the same thing over and over. Every good game, in my opinion, should have either a cool action selection mechanism or some clever puzzle we have to figure out during our turns (like building a shop location in Lisboa or building railway lines in Age of Steam). Here, both of these elements fall flat; it's basically a shallow production, into which a lot of effort and money has been invested to ensure a good return on investment from its Kickstarter campaign. With little satisfaction, I read newer comments about gameplay experiences on BoradgameGeek, where ratings are increasingly given by people immune to hype. I recommend reading them to those who haven't experienced the aforementioned drooling; it's worth it.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Galactic Cruise is an overhyped product that personally disappointed me. It's not a bad game, but it's definitely not what I expected it to be and what it pretends to be. An interesting theme is artistically botched on the main board, so I never experienced immersion for a moment. Launching the first rocket, that momentous moment I've been preparing for many turns, turned out to be a cheap firecracker; once the smoke cleared, I realized that was IT, and now the game creator expects me to light the fuse/create another one. I guess I've recently had an overdose of euro games devoid of interaction, especially when they require studying artificially added rules, hiding the depth of gameplay at the level of a puddle. I'll probably play it when there's an opportunity, but I definitely don't plan on buying it myself. However, I'm inclined to give the production a seven out of ten (with tendencies more towards going down than up), it's trivial, not very exciting, but overall aesthetic and simple, and sometimes that's enough for a nice, quiet evening with a board game.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT EXPANSIONS
Since expansions are currently being tested, I took a look at what they have to offer; I don't rule out that with minor changes, Galactic Cruise could come to life, but it needs some specific spark that adds something to the gameplay. Two boxes contain a whole bunch of additional disappointment - new cards, new goals (which doesn't change anything except increasing replayability), additional bonuses around action spaces (which borders on a joke), and sets of rocket segments, which contain different seat locations, so they'll only connect with each other with the right tile arrangement (the base game gives tremendous freedom in this regard, which I consider a plus). It's just so shallow that it should either be included in the base game or added as a variant; in no case should it be called an expansion. It makes me wonder to what extent their presence is an actual enrichment of Galactic Cruise and to what extent it's just stuffing the Kickstarter campaign with elements that seemingly increase the richness of the offer but in reality turn out to be a bait tempting players to buy the game. I recommend watching gameplay available online to assess their value before purchasing.
BGG LINK
Comentários