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The Little Crunch
Ah, the “small civgame,” the brass ring of tabletop design. If Age of Galaxy sounds familiar, that’s because this is the second edition of the tinier-than-you’d expect title from a couple years back. Now, in a somewhat ironic turn, it’s been blown outward.
Some dead space in the box notwithstanding, it’s a suitable alteration. The cards are full-sized! The map and action board feel less like gimmicks! The discs can actually stack on top of each other! This is the very same Age of Galaxy I reviewed positively two years ago, transformed so that it’s much easier to read across the table, with all the upsides and downsides vacuum-sealed for a fresh audience.
Federation Kitbash
Yesterday we took a look at Age of Civilization, Jeffrey CCH’s take on the thirty-minute civgame, which was loaded with clever ideas that got short shrift thanks to the game’s clipped duration and misplaced priorities.
Fortunately for us, CCH revisited the concept a few years later. Age of Galaxy swaps the first game’s historical civilizations for alien societies, tasking players with cobbling together their very own Federation of Planets — or a merciless Dominion. Or a Culture. Or maybe an Imperial Radch if they play their cards poorly. The bones of that first game remain very much intact, but everything else has been overhauled. And this is one hull upgrade that proves rather appreciated indeed.
SPACE-BIFF! 