Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
Welcome aboard and congrats on the promotion! Your “new” starship is ready to embark on its first big voyage. Just scrape off some of the rust and she’ll do fine. And that crew? Might look a little green around the edges, but they’re your crew now. Make us proud. Do you have what it takes to deftly command your crew and become the best captain in the cosmos? We'll see! In this 2-4 player Eurostyle game, which mixes action selection and engine building, you'll manage a diverse crew of cadets, ensigns, androids, and officers — each with different special roles and capabilities. By earning medals, you can promote and train your crew for even greater effectiveness. Similarly, you can upgrade your ship with powerful engine building technology for maximum synergy. Manage a diverse crew of cadets, ensigns, androids, and officers—each with different special roles and capabilities.
The basic blue action is to research technology, and the variability of the tech market is the game’s best feature. Taking a technology from the market of eight cards doesn’t cost a thing, and the tech is added to a tech board with six available slots. Over the course of play, adding technologies gives you three different options: The vibrant galaxy holds many peculiar mysteries to explore and uncover! Skillfully manage your team of cadets, ensigns, androids, and officers to make the most of their unique abilities—all while balancing essential ship roles, completing unique missions, and upgrading your ship with powerful engine-building alien technology. Your crew consists of ensigns and cadets. Ensigns are coloured in either red, blue or yellow and are used to activate matching rooms of their colour. Each turn, you will either assign one of your active crew to a room in your ship (letting you do all those actions we mentioned) or completing a mission card at your current planet. Each mission card is worth a certain number of points, and also depicts multiple lines that correlate to both positive and negative effects. Captains can complete missions (thereby scoring them) by assigning the appropriate number of crew members to the mission card. Any crew member, including your inept cadets) can be assigned to any line, but if the crew you assign matches the color of the line (or is one of those universally-capable androids), then you can optionally take advantage of the effects of that line, which could result in all kinds of bonuses…and sometimes penalties. It’s a good design choice where if a player moves to a planet with a mission, they get to reserve it until they leave. This is great as missions can require specific colours of ensigns to gain huge bonuses. It’s even a great strategy to pass while you have a good mission card reserved so you gain your full crew to use.In Starship Captains up to 4 players compete for reputation and glory across the galaxy in this adventurous euro game.
Despite some minor design issues it’s an incredibly pleasant experience. A game of endless possibilities and combinations that doesn’t overcomplicate itself or outstay its welcome.
Finally, I did like the variety in the tech cards. There are a lot of ways to gain bonuses and break the rules with them. However, I think that some are just better than others. It’s hard to take a situational card like being able to upgrade your cadets to yellow for free (which you could use, at most, 3 times during the game), vs. a card that lets you jump to any planet when you move. Also, there are only 3 end-game scoring tech cards, which don’t scale at player counts. So in a 3-4p game, it’s possible they will all be claimed by 2 (or even 1 if players aren’t paying attention) players. Final Thoughts: At the end of the fourth round, the game ends, and the player with the most points wins. Once you’ve used a crew member, they go to the end of your queue. Game Experience: The tech board and large number of tech cards help give Starship Captains high replay value. Combining this with the mission and event cards and you’ve got a game that you can keep playing without the fear of it growing stale. Overwhelming Choice Another unique mechanic with these cards are the matching bonus symbols. At the sides of the tech cards are small icons. When placing a card down on the board, if an icon matches one next to it you can claim an instant reward.
Settle into the captain’s chair of your very first star cruiser and get ready to embark on an exciting voyage through the depths of space in this euro-style action selection and engine building game for 1-4 players. Cadets can’t activate rooms (except for repair) but they can be promoted to an ensign if players spend medals, this allows for players to instantly gain an ensign of a colour they need by spending this resource. But that would be a miracle. Why are there so many rings slotted on each player board for a miracle scenario like this?It’s one of my favorite moments from my favorite Star Trek film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Kirk (William Shatner) is baring his teeth and yelling from the bridge of the Enterprise at his longtime nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban, shamefully not nominated for an Oscar for his work here). Final Score: 3.5 Stars – A well-produced game with a fun theme, but it’s hard to pin down what it excels at. Welcome aboard and congrats on the promotion! Your "new" starship is ready to embark on its first big voyage. Just scrape off some of the rust, and she'll do fine. And that crew? Might look a little green around the edges, but they're your crew now. Make us proud. I would contend that games like Starship Captains, similar to First Rat and other very approachable recent designs, are fantastic ways to introduce gamers to the hobby. The concepts in Starship Captains are easy to grasp, yet for experienced gamers there is still a lot to initially enjoy when trying to min/max each turn. Starship Captains has clearly had a lot of love put into its production. It’s disappointing, then, that the overall experience doesn’t quite hang together.
Each player in Starship Captains gets their own ship and crew to command. Each crewman will be focused in one of three areas (movement, shooting, or research) or be a lowly cadet who’s only good at repairing your ship. You can load up your ship with a variety of tech. Each player starts the game with their own ship which contains spaces for medals, upgrade rings, mission cards and a queue path to push your crew after use. Researching tech will provide you with a plethora of bonuses, as well as new abilities that let you take otherwise-impossible actions and open up new tactics and strategies. Technology like Stealth Paint, Universal Translators, and Wormhole Generators provide unique advantages to the players who develop them, so every captain will be looking for the technological edge on the competition.
The Bridge
At times it can feel like you are a restricted and you can run out of options but I found this approach not only keeps the game time down but forces players to carefully manage their actions. Managing Your Crew & Your Ship Hailing all Starship Captains! Get ready to boldly embark on a maiden voyage through the cosmos in this euro-style action selection and engine building game for 2-4 players. The game’s manual provides fun flavor text for each specific possible score from 21-75. 0-20 is summarized with something to the effect of “you are terrible at board games”, and I agree—it feels like it is almost impossible to score less than 25 points. The lowest score I have seen is 28 points, but the highest score across seven plays was 39. Finishing missions will enable players to then upgrade their respective ships with powerful alien technology, thereby allowing them to take on more ambitious tasks. Players will also be able to earn medals they can use to promote and train their crew – thus making them even better at their jobs. As their reputation for success spreads throughout the galaxy, players will gain connections with three separate factions and acquire even more benefits. Whichever player becomes the most celebrated starship captain wins the game.
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