The Founder and C.E.O. of Galactic Cruise is retiring in a few years, and looking for his successor. His company offers travelers extended space vacations, but with the comfort of a luxury cruise. As a supervisor, you will build shuttles, satisfy Galactic Cruise guests, and also help the company thrive by enhancing the company network, inventing new technologies, and growing the workforce. Can you impress the board of directors, and become the new C.E.O. of Galactic Cruise?
Galactic Cruise is a variable setup, worker placement game for 1-4 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about 90-150 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with pledge levels starting at $89 for a copy of the base game. The campaign started on March 4th, and as of this writing has over 6000 backers. The campaign for Galactic Cruise will run through April 3rd at 7am PDT.
Galactic Cruise was designed by T.K. King, Dennis Northcott, and Koltin Thompson, and published by Kinson Key Games, with illustrations by Ian O’Toole.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality.
All of the components came in baggies with the prototype copy, but the final version of Galactic Cruise will have customized Game Trayz for ease of storage. You can look at designs for those on the Galactic Cruise Kickstarter page.
The game comes with the following:
The Main Board is divided up into 3 main areas, as if these were buildings on a company campus. They are, from left to right: Planning and Strategy, Headquarters, and Manufacturing. Additionally, there are tracks on the board for Victory Points and Reputation.
A secondary board is set up directly adjacent to the Main Board. This is the Marketing board, where players advertise and sell cruises to guests.
The Headquarters section of the Main Board is where you’ll be taking the majority of your actions. There are 12 Action Tiles, which are randomly set up in the designated spaces on the board. When you send your workers to one of the tiles, they’ll take 2 actions, many of which will be fulfilled on various spots on both the Main and Marketing boards.
The Workers come in the four different player colors, and are screen printed wood. There are also larger Expert Workers, which can be unlocked during gameplay.
Expert Workers get an additional ability, which is determined during setup by randomly placing one of the Expert Worker Tiles.
Players each have their own Player Board. This board tracks personal resources and upgrades, and stores developments until they are placed on the Main Board. There is also a Launch Elevator on the side of the board, which guides the player through the steps taken during the 5-second countdown to launching a shuttle. These boards are double layer, with recesses for placing tokens and meeples.
Players will have access to four different technology upgrades throughout the game by taking the action of building a Development on a Technology Tile. These provide various ongoing advantages once available. The four upgrades are chosen randomly at the start of a game from a pool of eight tiles. Additional Technology Tiles are available in the two optional expansions in the Kickstarter campaign.
One of the main paths towards Victory Points during a game of Galactic Cruise is through building a shuttle and launching a cruise. Players each start with identical Cockpit and Engine tiles, but other tiles are available to purchase during the course of a game.
You can’t just launch a shuttle with a cockpit and engine, though. You must first purchase blueprints for various segments of a shuttle, and then use another action to build these segments into your shuttles. These segments will give bonuses if you have the matching Guest type onboard your shuttle.
As this is a galactic cruise company you’re running, you can’t take off without having tourists on your shuttle. There are three different types of Guests that you can recruit for your shuttle: Relaxing, Family, and Adventurous.
You must schedule a Cruise before you can launch a shuttle. When you match the Guest type to a destination on a cruise, you will increase your Reputation.
Despite this being a prototype, the majority of the components already are of very high quality. The Ian O’Toole artwork shines, giving a nice retro feeling to this futuristic game. The wooden meeples and tokens are all satisfying to work with, and have nice screen printing to help differentiate the pieces, especially the two different types of worker meeples.
You can download a copy of the rulebook here. You can also try out an intro game of Galactic Cruise on either Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia.
The goal of the game is to earn Victory Points by taking guests on cruises and accomplishing other company goals.
Place the Main Board in the center of the playing area, with the Marketing Board directly to the right of it. Shuffle the Agenda Cards and place them facedown beside the Main Board, then reveal 4 cards from the top of the deck and place them faceup on the indicated spaces of the Main Board.
Place the Progress Track Tiles that match the player count on the indicated spaces on the Main Board, returning unused tiles to the box.
Shuffle the 12 Action Tiles and randomly place 2 at each indicated location on the Main Board. Shuffle the Expert Worker Tiles and place 1 randomly on the indicated space. Shuffle the Company Goal Tiles and place 1 at random on the indicated space, returning the rest to the box. Place a Company Goal Tracker into each of the 3 bottom spaces of the Company Goal Tile.
Shuffle the Technology Tiles and randomly place 4 of them into the Technology Tiles spaces on the Main Board. Return the rest to the box after using the back of one of the leftover tiles to determine and place the Neutral Developments on the board, covering the Reputation Icons for the indicated spaces.
Create a supply of Money and Ads for the players.
Shuffle the Blueprint Tiles and place them faceup in a stack beside the Main Board. Take the top 5 tiles from the stack and place them on the indicated spaces on the Main Board.
Place a Small Resource Tracker of each type into the Storage Silo at the “2” level.
Setting aside the starting Cockpit and Engine Tiles, shuffle the remaining Cockpit Tiles and place a stack next to the Main Board. Take the top 4 Tiles and place them faceup on the indicated spaces. Do the same for the Engine Tiles.
Shuffle the Guest Bonus Tokens, and place one on each of the indicated spaces on the Marketing Board, sending the remaining tiles to the box. If playing with fewer than 4 players, use the Marketing Board Overlay to cover the top 1 or 2 spaces of the Marketing Board, depending on player count.
Shuffle the Cruise Tiles and randomly place 1 on each of the open spaces for player count. Place the remaining tiles in a facedown stack nearby.
Place all the Guests beside the Marketing Board, creating a supply. From that supply, take a matching Guest for each Destination listed on the faceup Cruise tiles and set them aside. Randomly place each of these, one at a time, in the Queue next to the Marketing Board, placing them in each of the 3 sections bottom to top, repeating until all of the Guests are placed.
Each player chooses a player color and then takes a Player Board, all components of their color, and a Resource Tracker of each type, and places them as shown in the above picture.
Place 4 brown Upgrade Tokens on the top 4 spaces of the Launch Tower, and the 4 grey Upgrade Tokens on the bottom 4 spaces.
Take 1 Starting Cockpit Tile and 1 Starting Engine Tile, and place them to the left of the Player Board.
Take 10 Money and 2 Ads from the supply, and 1 Agenda Card from the top of the Agenda Deck. Place 3 of your Progress Cubes above the Company Goal tile in the spaces matching your player color on the Main Board. Place the rest of your cubes near your Player Board.
Place your VP Tracker at “5” and your Reputation Marker at “0” on their respective tracks on the Main Board. Place your Cruise Consultant onto the Marketing Board.
The player who most recently went on a cruise or vacation will be first player and take the First Player Token. In clockwise order starting with the first player, set your starting Reputation: 0/1/2/3.
In reverse order, place 1 Development for free from the left column of Development on your Player Board onto the Main Board in an area where no Developments are currently present, gaining a Reputation.
Also in reverse order, take a Blueprint Tile from the Main Board, and place it beside your Player Board in one of the indicated spaces. After all players have taken their tiles, slide all remaining Blueprints to the bottommost available spaces, then refill the empty spaces from the Blueprint stack.
Starting with the First Player, each player will take a turn, going clockwise in order. On average, a player will usually get 20 turns.
On a turn, a player will first Advance Shuttles, and then do one of the following: Assign a Worker, Launch a Shuttle, or Call a Meeting. Finally, you will check if you Accomplish a Company Goal.
If, at the start of your turn, you have shuttles in space, you will advance them to different stops until they return to Earth. Move your Pilot 1 space forward on the Cruise Tile. There are 3 different types of stops: Destinations, Days in Space, and Returning to Earth.
If you have an Upgrade Token on your Engine, you may place into onto one of the Upgrades on the Destination that you’re currently on, unlocking that Upgrade. You may not have more than 3 Upgrades on any Destination.
You may also score each Guest on your shuttle once per Destination by paying their Ad cost: 1 Ad if the Destination matches the Guest type, 2 Ads if not. Guests scores are equal to 3 VP, +1 VP per Upgrade Token at that Destination.
For each Guest, gain one matching bonus as listed on the Marketing Board for each matching icon in the shuttle.
Your worker, which was acting as the shuttle pilot, returns to the Break Room on the Player Board. Gain 1 Funding Bonus out of the 4 different options listed in the top area of the Launch Tower on the Player Board. The Cruise Tile is then returned to the bottom of the Cruise stack, and the Guests are returned to the supply. The Shuttle that has returned may now have segments built into it, or be launched again.
Place a Worker on a location. You may Bump another player’s Worker, in which case that player returns their Worker to their Break Room and immediately gains a Funding Bonus.
After placing your Worker, you may take up to 2 actions with that Worker. You may take actions from the two at the space where it is placed. If you have a Development connecting to an adjacent location, you may take either or both of the actions at that adjacent space. If an opponent has a development at an adjacent location, you may use the actions from that space, but you pay that opponent a sum based on your current Reputation. The higher your Reputation, the less you will have to pay.
Here are the 12 different actions you can take:
A quick note regarding resources: once per turn at any time, you may also reduce your Reputation Tracker as far as you would like, gaining all the bonuses of one type of resource that you cross over.
One of your options during a player turn is to place one of your Workers to launch a Shuttle. In order to launch a Shuttle you must have:
The leftmost space on your Player Board is the Launch Elevator. Place a Worker on the lowest space of the Launch Elevator. There are 5 steps to launching your Shuttle, representing a 5 second countdown. As you move your Worker up the Launch Elevator, there are icons representing the actions you take on each step of the countdown:
After launching, you will add a new Cruise Tile to replace the one you used during launch. Then, Guests move down in queue, and new Guests are added from the supply.
Recall all your Workers from the Main Board and place them into your Break Room. Gain a Funding Bonus for each “open hand” symbol covered. You may then take just one action from a location that has at least one of your Developments connected to it.
If you have no Workers in your Break Room when it’s your turn, you must Call a Meeting on your turn.
Each game, there are 3 different Company Goals, as shown on the Company Goal Tile. If you meet or exceed the current goal as indicated by the Company Goal Tracker, you have accomplished that goal. Then do the following:
You may only accomplish each goal once per game.
When the final cube is placed into sections 1 or 2 of the Progress Track, the track is filled, and an Annual General Meeting is held. At this time, players score VP equal to the number of Progress Cubes they have in that section, times the number of Wings in their player color revealed on the Main Board.
The player currently with the most Reputation is considered to have one extra cube for scoring purposes.
The end of Galactic Cruise is triggered when the final cube is placed into section 3 of the Progress Track. Play continues with players finishing out the current round, and then a Final Round is played.
For the Final Round, everyone retrieves all their Workers from the Main Board and gains Funding Bonuses. Then, in turn order, everyone takes 1 final turn.
Finally, in turn order, any shuttles that are on Cruises get advanced one final time to any remaining stop on the Cruise, with all steps of that stop being taken.
Players score the following:
The winner is the person with the most Victory Points.
If you read through the “how to play” section of this review for Galactic Cruise, then you’ll know that there’s a lot going on in this game. Kinson Key Games classifies it as a mid to heavy-weight Euro, and that’s pretty accurate. At a casual glance, the various boards can appear overwhelming, with all of the different game spaces and iconography.
However, once you start reading the easy to follow rules, you soon see the intelligence and elegance behind T.K. King, Dennis Northcott, and Koltin Thompson’s design. Even at its prototype stage, the rules are explained clearly, with multiple illustrations and examples to make sure that you can follow the flow of the game.
The basics of gameplay in Galactic Cruise are remarkably easy to pick up. On my initial game, all three of us were playing for the very first time, but we soon found ourselves right in the swing of things, and only rarely had to refer to the rulebook. All that iconography that seemed so scary at first is very clear and identifiable, thanks to the excellent graphic design.
As you can see from the rulebook above, the boards are laid out in a fashion that is easy to make sense of thematically. The lovely Ian O’Toole artwork is charmingly retro, while still reinforcing the theme of galactic tourism throughout. Little details, like having the launch elevator for the shuttles walk you through each of the steps of the shuttle launch, are one of the best examples of how well the theme works to reinforce the gameplay.
While easy to learn, Galactic Cruise is still a challenging efficiency puzzle. As with many worker placement games, you’re planning your moves several turns in advance. If you want to launch a Shuttle, you’ll have multiple steps to take before that can happen. Just go back and look at all the prerequisites to initiate a launch: there are 4 steps listed, and that’s just for a single shuttle. Ideally, you’ll manage to build and launch the maximum of 3 shuttles.
Speaking of shuttles, my friends and I didn’t fully understand the importance of getting as many cruises launched as you can. You would think that with the game’s title being Galactic Cruise, we might have gotten the hint! But cruises are a huge source for both Victory Points and Upgrades. And even though you spend a lot of resources to get a launch going, you will get some back during your stops in space. In that first game, I decided to try and get a small shuttle launched as soon as I possibly could, and that turned out to be the key to my winning the game. Rather than try to max out a shuttle on the first go-round, I got a simple 2-segment shuttle off the ground, and soon was reaping the rewards.
Even though this is just a prototype and not the finished product, Galactic Cruise is very refined. The overall game design is polished, and the artwork and components already feel very deluxe. Having enjoyed custom Game Trayz for other Kickstarter-funded games, their addition in Galactic Cruise will be welcome, especially as they speed up the setup at the table. There are also dedicated components and rules for a solo mode, the inclusion of which is often a must for many players.
If you’re looking for an involved worker placement game that just oozes theme, then you should definitely check out Galactic Cruise. The campaign runs through April 3rd, so you still have plenty of time to jump on board. And if you want to try out the gameplay yourself before committing, Kinson Key Games provides links to playable introductory games on both Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Galactic Cruise Kickstarter page!
Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.
Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
This post was last modified on March 27, 2024 12:44 pm
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