Game Review

Stellar Horizons -- Dan

I get much enjoyment playing a game that I can walk away from with a great story to tell. It's not about the time I drew the perfect set of cards or got incredibly lucky rolling dice. It's the story those activities generate that keeps me coming back for more. In Stellar Horizons, you build your own space program and advance out into the solar system, first tentatively with fragile robotic orbiters and rovers. With each success or failure you slowly gather scientific data and technical experience and move to more and more sophisticated crewed ships, and then bases, perhaps first on the moon, and then other planets. As the decades pass, bases grow, resources are generated, colonies appear that can trade with each other. Threats and opportunities abound, and perhaps one day you may even be able to build a starship and leave the solar system.

Stellar Horizons, by Compass Games, was designed by real-life long-duration spaceflight engineer Andrew Rader. It is firmly rooted in real life science and technology, but abstracts enough of the details that players are left with an intense feeling and understanding of the difficulty and complexity of interplanetary spaceflight, without any special knowledge needed.

Eight very different scenarios are included, ranging from an hour or so in length, building settlements on Mars or deflecting an asteroid headed toward Earth, to the full 11-hour campaign that stretches across the years from 2030 to 2169. The full campaign can support 1-7 players, each playing a different geopolitical consortium, across dozens of locations on planets, moons, asteroids, comets, etc. Both competitive and cooperative scenarios are included, and a fan-made scenario is also available. I even had a great time making up my own scenario.

One of the few detractors from the game is the rulebook. For all its options and scope, the game is not overly complicated, but the rulebook is not as well laid out as it could be, and is vague on a number of points. I think that to truly enjoy the game and avoid frustration, you must be ready to watch a couple videos on YouTube to learn the details of play, and also to download player aids and errata from the game's active community on Boardgamegeek.com. It's also an expensive game, at $149, but I was able to find a copy used that had a damaged box for a substantial discount through Noble Knight Games.

Find it on Boardgamegeek.com.