Designers: Robert Dougherty, Darwin Kastle

In the last few years we have seen an ever increasing amount of deck building and deck drafting games, they are what you might call “All the rage” as far as designer board and card game mechanics go. The popularity of games like Dominion and Thunderstone is undeniable and that’s just the most notable ones, there are certainly plenty of under the radar games out there that are worth mentioning in this category. With its very low price, thumbs up from respected reviewers, high praise from board game geek and science-fiction theme it really was almost an automatic buy for me. The fact that there was a dirt cheap online app version of the game to test drive the game electronically was just icing on the cake. Let’s face it, some publishers know how to promote a game and some don’t, White Wizards Games clearly knows its audience.

Star Realms is actually a very simple game, it makes use of the deck building mechanic that most of us are already familiar with because of games like Dominion but instead of making the game about collecting points in a sort of race, it pits two players against each other in an outright “magic the gathering” like duel. No surprise, given that the two designers of this game are Magic The Gathering designer veterans.

Star Realms is effectively a combat game in which players use and purchase ships to generate gold to purchase new ships and bases and attack power to attack the health known as authority in Star Realms of their opponent. Each round you draw 5 cards from your deck, play the cards, buy cards from the pool of 5 randomly lined up in the center of the table and use whatever attack power you have to deal damage directly to your opponent. Take turns, rinse and repeat until someone runs out of health.

Now like all good card games the cards have all manner of special powers from forcing your opponent to discard cards, drawing more cards, earning you additional health and all manner of other interesting effects. The more powerful the card the more it costs. In addition each card you purchase be it a ship or a base is associated with a faction (one of four) and most of the cards have a primary effect and a secondary effect that triggers when a card of the same faction is played in the same round. For example an Imperial faction fighter has an attack power of 2 and forces your opponent to discard a card, but if another Imperial card is played that fighter deals an additional 2 points of damage.

This triggers lots of strategic options but since only 5 cards are available at a time from a deck of about one hundred, unlike Dominion, there isn’t a fixed strategy you can pre-plan and play, its very dynamic and your always making tough choices round to round. The pace of the game is very fast, you can start and finish a game in 15 to 20 minutes and it doesn’t take up a lot of space so it’s a game you can definitely travel with. This one should definitely go into the camping backpack or in the glove box on a road trip.

There are many twists and turns in this game in particular given its very basic core rules mechanic, in fact, for such a light and easy to teach game its depth is surprising. I was in particularly impressed with the games fluidity and approach-ability, it’s one of those card games you really can teach to anyone and it was very easy to get non-gamers to try it out.

Do I like it? Truth be told, I love it. I’m not sure if its the art work or the mechanics, but the game has an addictive appeal and I suppose for me personally its the same reason I like games like Dominion and Thunderstone. That deck building mechanic is fantastic and its always fun to see it applied to different types of themes. I think being largely a two player game Star Realm is of limited use for me in my collection since I so rarely only have one other player available. In fact these days even 2 to 4 player games come up short, I tend to have 5+ at my table. That said, Star Realms immediately became a permanent addition of what I like to call my “Race For The Galaxy box of space card games” which includes of course Race for the Galaxy but also other space games like the Eve Online CCG. I like card games themed in space and Star Realm certainly earns its stripes as an ideal addition. It fits that “We got 20 minutes, its just the two of us and one of us doesn’t know how to play the game” niche, which is actually contrary to what it sounds like, far more common. Its a game you can teach on the fly, its fun, its got depth, its pretty and its science-fiction. Its what I like to call a “yes” game, as its one of those games when I look to my collection for a game to pull of the shelf it answers yes to a lot of filters that are commonly used.

I’m not sure the game really needs expansions, I have talked about this before but there are a lot of games that are just great the way they are and while I’m sure the expansions are interesting and worthy additions, I don’t see the point, the game is perfect the way it is. To me personally games like Star Realm are great BECAUSE they are simple and expansions always unquestionably complicate games. A good example is Dominion, the base game is a simple to teach, fast and very uncomplicated. Throw in a couple of expansions and it becomes a very complex, very intricate game that takes waaaaay to long.

This game definitely gets the seal of approval from me, don’t hesitate if you’re a scinece-fiction nut looking to find a 2 player game that’s easy to teach but offers plethora of depth for repeated plays.