Starship Catan
Game: Starship Catan, 2-player game
Play: Visit planets, fight pirates, collect resources, improve your starship’s engines and cannons, and build Colony and Trade planets.
There is a die rolled in order to fly through one of four planet decks of cards (in conjunction with your engines) and a die used to fight pirates as they come up (in conjunction with your cannons). The flight die can also get you and your opponent resources from your colony planets, depending on the number rolled.
Your opponent flips cards from the planet deck of your choice (as many cards as the die rolled plus your engine capacity) and you take two actions (or more, with the command module). The actions include buying or selling resources or science, building a Trade or Colony planet, and special events from Pallas, Hades, Posiden, or Picasso. Dealing with pirates doesn’t count as an action.
After that, you can buy and sell resources using any Trade planets you own, and upgrade your starship.
Endgame is 10 points. You get points from buying the upgraded modules, winning lots of pirate battles, and a few other things. Most regular actions aren’t worth points.
Art: The art on the cards is nice. The art on the starship itself is way too busy. In fact, I found it overwhelming. The background art, what’s around the important bits, should be paler or darker - somehow less obtrusive - or even just not there.
The shape of the starship is clever and fun and makes up for a lot of the flaws.
Conclusion: I’d like to try it again, if only to not lose by quite so many points. I’m not sure I’d want to play it much more than that, but I reserve that judgment until I play it at least once more.
