Intergalactic Teamsters!

This past weekend, I met up with some friends to play a few games. My boyfriend had never tried Galaxy Trucker, and I had only played it one other time, so we gave it a whirl. Result: jolly good times!

Galaxy Trucker is unlike any other board game I've played...maybe it has something to do with it being Czech? Well, I'm fairly certain it's the only Czech game I've played. Although, I did come THIS close (*pinches index finger and thumb really close together*) to playing Dungeon Lords by the same designer, but the instructions alone would have taken a few hours to read and decipher, so we went with something slightly less complex. I hear it's a great game, and I'm sure I'll try it out someday.

Anyway, all the reviews I've read about Galaxy Trucker give high praise to the instructions (??), mostly because they are pretty frickin' funny. If you're the type of player who likes to know the 'background' story, then by all means, give the instructions a thorough read - you'll have a pretty good laugh. For me and my friends, we just want to dive right in, and only refer to the instructions to refresh our memory. The story, as I see it, is that we are basically intergalactic teamsters! We have to build our ships with all the right bits and bobs, and try to deliver it as undamaged as possible to some insignificant destination where the surviving ship pieces will be recycled and reused. How very responsible and green!! Or, maybe just cheap. Along the way, you can pick up and sell space crap to make a little money on the side, which is how you win the game - COLD HARD CASH!!!! Strange, then, that the currency is measured in cents...pennies, even! It's a little deflating to win a round and collect all of 12 cents. Whatever...it is what it is, and if I can win a game with only 29 cents, then so be it.

Building the ship is pretty fun, and a little stressful. You have to keep a lot of different things in mind: Does everything connect properly? Do I have enough pods for my astronauts and aliens? Are there enough thrusters and blasters and do my shields protect me from all sides? And, most importantly, do I have enough batteries to power all of these things? When you're fighting for pieces, you inevitably forget or sacrifice one ore more elements of ship-building. Oh, well. Maybe you'll get lucky and your ship will survive the "events" you have to endure en route to your destination.

I, personally, like the part where you load up your ship with all the awesome little pieces! They are so cute!!! We call the batteries Advil - they look just like Liqui-Gels!

Lookit how cute they are!!!

The game lasts three rounds and the ships get bigger and bigger each subsequent round, which means they are more susceptible to getting all busted up! Halfway through the third round of the game we played, two ships lost all their astronauts, which meant that there was no one left to fly the ship, so the round ended for those players. We decided to play out the rest of the events with the the last two ships just to see how beat up they got by the end of it.

It's pretty fun to see if you can avoid the meteors, or survive pirate attacks. But, it's a little stressful when you lose a big chunk of your ship, especially when it's a piece that holds precious cargo, or batteries, or astronauts. It's all in good fun, though. In fact, it's not even a game that I'm concerned about winning. It's entertaining just to see how well everyone does! I'm not even sure how to strategize in order to win (i.e. make the most money)...but I won, anyway. And I don't even care!!!

But, I won. Just so's you know...