Andromeda's Edge

Delivery EST 06/24.

One play in, honestly much less complex than I thought it would be. Extremely fun and the deluxe components just make it such a joy. Just rolling those jumbo raider dice is so satisfying. Can't wait to get more plays in!

A TON of setup with even more teaching time involved. Once you actually get to play the game, it's a lot of fun!

More reheated Euro fare consisting of stale worker placement optimization, overdone point track climbing, a glut of iconography, all with a bland and unevocative ‘space combat’ theme.

The ‘combat’ tells no interesting stories or allows any room for nuance or actual diplomacy, because it’s only in service of the standard solitaire Euro action-chaining puzzle under the (rather flimsy) hood. And lesser said about the 'exploration', the better - well, not that there's much to say to begin with. Overall, every turn in the game felt repetitive and boring.

If you want a modern Euro masquerading as an interactive 'area-control' game because you get to chuck some dice, but where the actual game is about improving and optimizing your own personal board so that you can climb more point tracks, this is the game for you. For me, it’s become the archetypal game I’d like to steer clear of.

Beautiful production and presentation; gameplay didn't do much for me.

Another 4X? This one is just so smooth, balanced, and vastly intriguing - I think it is the best for that Euro feeling of combos and engine building plus scoring paths. You do get in each other's way certainly, but there are paths to victory and it feels like the development buildings are the most sure way to score. There are some takebacks: the swingy turns (one is just take a resource, another is trigger a half dozen powers) makes the game feel uneven and requires patience on off-turns. The event cards can be swingy as well - but since players can control their appearance, perhaps this is all fine. So much to explore here! Over all, I really love this one. Superior to Eldervale in every way?

I'm really excited for this and I'm prerating it as a 10, since it's basically a rethemeing of Dwellings of Eldarvale. I'm super curious if I'll keep Dwellings after I have this one. I believe not but we'll see.

Art an concept are great, the theme is week and the mechanisms strong, so this game goes for euro lovers who are not afraid of confrontation. The battle system is smart and simple.