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I knew Race for the Galaxy was a popular game when I picked it up last time I visited my FLGS Lautapelit.fi in Helsinki the other day. I hadn't realized just how popular, and seeing it had climbed to the no. 10 spot on Boardgamegeek raised my expectations and eagerness to play it. Having read through the rules we played a quick 2-player game with brother Jens.

They say Race for the Galaxy is a lot like San Juan, which is a lot like Puerto Rico. Not having played San Juan, I can only attest to the fact that Race for the Galaxy does feel a lot like Puerto Rico. I started from Alpha Centauri and Jens from Epsilon Eridani and we were off. Besides only a few mishaps with the rules early on (Jens had built a development in a Settle-phase, and I had conquered a non-production world with a military force only capable of conquering Rare Elements-worlds) I think we did OK.

Ok, so a basic idea of how the game works. A turn is divided into five phases. (1) Explore, which basically means drawing new cards. (2) Develop, in which players can purchase developments which provide special powers later on in the game. Purchases are paid for in discarding cards from your hand. (3) Settle, when players can purchase worlds in the same manner as developments, or conquer worlds if they've built up a strong enough military force (which you get from developments and worlds). Similiarly to developments, worlds give special powers in later turns, and some of them produce goods. (4) (Trade and) Consume, in which players exchange goods from their planets to either new cards or victory points, depending on what kind of trade- and consumptionpowers your worlds and developments have. Last but not least (5) Produce, in which your productionworlds produce a good, if they don't already have a good on them (they can only hold one good at a time).

The turns start with all players secretly and simultaneously selecting one of these phases using cards. After they are revealed only the phases that are selected by any player are played. Any phase that is activated is played by all players, the ones selecting that specific phase getting a bonus. For example, if the Develop phase is played, all players can build one development, paying its' cost in discards, but the player(s) who chose that specific phase get it at a -1 cost. If all players select the same phase, it means all players get the bonus, and also that only that one phase is going to take place in the whole turn. Of course the game is a bit more involved than this, but not much. The basic mechanics of the game are very simple, the only thing which takes some getting used to is interpreting the symbols explaining the powers of developments and worlds. That takes anything from a few turns to a game or two. They're not difficult per se, but may take a while to get used to. The game carries on until one player reaches twelve developments/worlds or the stack of victory points runs out (amount of participating players x 12), after which victory point totals are tallied. Worlds and developments add to the VP amount.

As all players build their own little universe completely separate from the other players, the biggest complaint this game receives is that it's a multiplayer solitaire. Yes, the interaction is indirect and there's less of it, but there is some – especially when choosing which phase to play. Naturally you could only stare at what you yourself need, but if you do – you'll be beaten by the better players any day of the week. The most simple of examples occured in our game. Jens had hardly any goods on his planets for the time being, whilst my worlds were filled. Although I needed cards and was thinking about selecting Explore – I knew I would benefit more from Consume, as I could see Jens would not be able to fill up his goods before it, being as the Produce-phase occurs after Consume. I was also pretty sure he would choose Produce simply because his worlds were empty. This happened and silent curses were uttered by my adversary.

Sure there is some luck of the draw as well. Early on Jens concentrated on building up an army so that he could conquer worlds instead of purchasing them. But he never really drew any worlds he would have been able to take with his military force. Likewise, I drew a really good world early on, which could not be bought, but had to be conquered. But seing as I really wanted this world I held on to it (for too long, in hindsight…) hoping to get developments and worlds which would get me an army. These never came. So Jens had an army but had nothing to attack – I had plenty of targets but no army. Such is life.

During the game I also kept staring on Jens' universe (or tableau, as the game refers to it as) and saw that his worlds added up to more VP:s than mine. Simply put, I needed to either hog up on the victory point-chips or find more valuable worlds. But I kept drawing there worlds worth one point, if even that. When I was up to 10 cards in my universe, Jens was still at 8, I knew I had to end the game before he had time to build more developments and worlds. I played Consume and thanks to my Deficit Spending-development I was able to grab the final VP chips to end the game. And much as I anticipated, Jens grabbed the victory with his more valuable worlds, 29 to 25.

I really, really like the game. I really like the fact that, even though there's an element of luck, there always something you can do with your cards – something you can't say about a lot of cardgames. I can't wait for our little gaming group to get together so we can try this with 4 players. Because of the simultanous actions, and the fact that everybody participates in all phases taking place weather or not they chose it, should mean that there's little if any downtime. It worked brilliantly as a 2-player game as well – even though we didn't play the advanced 2-player version.