The Stars and Their Places

Admittedly, Kickstarter has produced some great success stories: D-Day Dice, SotM: Infernal Relics, Pixel Lincoln, Viva Java, etc. etc. However, to only back projects on one crowdfunding site is to overlook myriad worthwhile projects. For some hidden gems, head over to IndieGoGo.com, the European equivalent to KS.

No, IndieGoGo isn't as streamlined or organized as Kickstarter (though it seems many believe KS's new layout to be a step backwards): there's not really a way to separate board/card games from digital games, and there's no obvious marker to designate the level at which you backed a project (leaving you to wonder if your transaction truly went through). But... despite these flaws, I'd argue that the quality of games are equivalent to anything you find on Kickstarter.

One of those high quality games is Among The Stars by Artipia Games, makers of the well received Drum Roll and soon-to-be-released Briefcase. Among The Stars tells the story of a Galaxy recovering from the attacks of "The Black Ones" (apparently Greeks can get away with blatant racism more easily than Americans). In the aftermath of this war, alliances have been formed; alliances which dictate that space stations must be built in order to both protect against future attacks and return some semblance of normality into the lives of the myriad races who fought valiantly.

1. Choose a card to be added to your station - if this is chosen, the player pays the requisite amount of credits (and/or energy cubes), places the location adjacent (i.e. non-diagonal) to a tile already in play, and collects an amount of VP indicated in the lower left of the card.
2. Get a Power Station - A player choosing this option must discard a card from their hand and pay 1 credit. When this is done, an additional power station is placed adjacent to a location already in play, and 2 energy cubes are placed on that reactor.
3. Discard a card to get 3 credits - This is exactly what is sounds like. Players discard a card from their hand and take 3 credits from the bank/communal pool. 

When there are no more tiles in a player's hand, the round ends and the year marker is moved forward. At the start of the next year, 6 more cards are dealt,  each player receives 10 more credits (unless a racial ability alters this), and play progresses as described above. After 4 rounds, known in the game as "years," the game ends. Players tally up their VP, add VP granted at end game (indicated by text in a yellow box rather than a white box), determine Objective bonuses, and add VP based on exhausted power reactors (1VP per) and leftover credits (3credits = 1VP). The player with the most VP wins. In the case of a tie, the player with the most locations in his/her station wins.

After reading the description, Jones Theorists and other gamers might claim that AtS resembles 7 Wonders, another popular game that involves card drafting. While there are many similarities, I think this game has enough differences to merit a spot in your collection.

The most glaringly obvious difference is the area in which you play cards. As opposed to 7 Wonders, there is an additional layer of importance based on WHERE you play your cards, not just WHAT and WHEN.  Secondly, resources seem to be a lot more scarce in Among the Stars. In 7Wonders, a lot of cards produce resources that can be utilized to build other things that provide other resources. There are very few locations in AtS that provide credits. With the average cost of a location being 3-4 credits, you will typically only get to play 2-3 locations in a round. So, care must be taken in deciding what action to take an when. Lastly, the distinction of color is a little looser in AtS than in 7Wonders. There are color distinctions in AtS; for example: Red bordered cards are military and typically cost more, give more VP, and require energy cubes. However, color is primarily used for end-game VP bonuses. So, a player in AtS may benefit from building a monochromatic space station, but in doing so they leave themselves open to active hate drafting from other players AND pass cards that reward diversity. 

I should also not that, instead of simply divvying up the cards into 3 ages, players in AtS shuffle a number of Special Cards (designated by a "S") into the main deck equal to 6x the number of players. In doing this, you add a level of unpredictability into the game. You might place something in your grid hoping for a special card that isn't even in the main deck. If all this weren't enough, there are also Conflict cards that may be added or removed from the main deck so that players may customize the level of direct aggression they want. It's actually a great addition that lets me play the game one way with my wife and another way entirely with my game group.