Stellarion

Another theme we like to try are space-based games.  Stellarion looked good and when you first open the box the presentation is excellent.

There are 8 little decks of cards.   Each card has a Type and a Galaxy.  Each Type and Galaxy has its own deck.  Each Type deck has two of each Galaxy of that Type, and each Galaxy deck has two of each Type for that Galaxy.  Even though you know exactly what is in each deck,  bringing the right cards to the top to turn in matching sets is surprisingly difficult.

Each round you can either trade in a matching pair of cards (same Type) to mess with the decks or trade in a set of the four different Types for a Galaxy to launch a ship.   Eight launches wins the game.

I ended up having to write up a little cheat sheet about what rack pair of cards can do.  The publisher really should have printed some cards for that, since it's a drag to have to keep the rulebook open the whole time. Of course, if your trade is two of a Type and they have the same Galaxy you generally get two moves or an expanded move, so it's not that easily encapsulated.

This game is meant for solo play or as a cooperative effort for two.   It played well with the two of us trying to figure it out together.   The first 15 minutes was frustrating but then we got the feel of it and it was only moderately complex.  A bit of a brain drain,  more puzzle than game.

Still, it was yet another game unlike any other.  Who knew there were so many different ways to handle cards?

The box set we bought included 4 expansions, and halfway through our first attempt, we figured out that many of the cards don't belong in the base game at all.  After a successful run through the game, we wondered why anyone would want these expansions to make it even more confusing.

Every piece looked great, and it's obviously a game for thinkers, which is nice.






As I was putting the game away, we saw the company's list of other games, and they started off colorful and faded away to sketches and bits of poetry.  It turns out that these are all part of the "Oniverse" that started with Onirim in 2010, and the final game "Ultimion" is supposed to somehow tie them all together.  The black-and-white entries in the little catalog were all coming soon.  Another layer of beautiful and mysterious art.  The publisher's website is here: inPatience Games.

Next time we're at the game shop in Vista, maybe we'll look for a few more of these.  Rather than having to pay air shipping from Belgium.  This team scores megapoints for being creative and weird, but I don't know if their brand of logic puzzle is really for us.

 

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