Doug's Dungeon - Roll For The Galaxy

  

Okay so I might be warming up to dice games. Newer ones at least. Older implementations of dice were so static. “Here’s your dice roll, sir. Live with it” was the norm for your Monopolies and your Risks. Players had less control, and felt like they were watching a game rather than interfacing with it. Hell, games like ‘Trouble’ had that little dice dome thing. You’d press it and the die would spring around. Because that’s all your interaction boiled down to. A button press. But as I’ve said about Valeria, dice can be done well. So well even that you could get a new game, and consider it your new favourite right after the first play.


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Dice, dice, and more dice. That is what you will find within the walls of Roll for the Galaxy. Each player is a space-faring race of sentient beings, stretching their control over the galaxy. Said players roll their dice, select phases to activate, and perform a whole pile of actions one needs to support a growing empire.

 

 

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Rolling for the Stones is a game of the minds, as much as it is one of engine-building. Each die you control represents a citizen. You put them to work by rolling them in your SWEET PLAYER-COLOURED CUP. Pour them out into your secret area, then arrange them by what faces were rolled. Each die face shows one of the five phases. Using any 1 of your dice, you pick a phase that will be activated for the round. Any workers you have assigned to that phase will be used. ALSO, the dice you have on the other phases could be used as well! The thing is, each other player is secretly picking a phase too. All the picked phases will fire each round, even if -you- didn’t pick it.

 


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Herein lies the mental gymnastics of Rolly for the Poly. You can pick any die to be your ‘phase activator’ but if you really need to produce this round, you can rely on others to activate the produce phase for you. Leave that die where it is, and spend your resources elsewhere. You may, for example, want to scout out new planets and technologies to add to the building queue. These come in the form of a big ol’ bag of tiles. One side is a planet to settle, the other a new ability for your species. The tech side grants you more flexibility for your turns, but planets often provide new dice to add to your empire. The more dice you get, the betterer stuff you can do.

 


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But hark! Do you hear that sound? Why it’s the economy, stupid! Each player earns and spends galactic credits throughout the game.  After all the activated phases are done, all spent dice sit in your citizenry. In order to prepare them (put them in the cup) for the next round, you need to pay them. Because that’s just common decency. Additionally, this forces players to consider using the scouting dice for money over discovery. Shipping dice can, instead of consuming the goods for victory points, ship trade them for more caaaaaaash. This currency is not earned naturally, and if you play wrong you can find yourself with too few workers for the next round.


Another tool at your disposal is the faction double tile you start with. From pirate nations to space-mall-making marketerions, this game has it all. Smart players leverage this power to their advantage, picking up planets and powers that synergize with it. Counting them, and the home world tile you get at the start, you need 12 tiles to close out the game. That, or exhaust the victory points that are up for grabs. Whoever has the most expensive (and VP successful) empire wins the game!


Roll for the guardians of the Galaxy is really fast (once you pick up the turn order). The simultaneous action system and subtle player interactivity just make it a damn good time. You aren’t going into this game blowing up planets and sending assassins. You’re here to roll dice, administrate them effectively, and perform cost-profit analyses on the board state. You may think the game is all about who rolls dice the best, but you’d be wrong. The randomness of the dice provides not a hinderance but a beautiful variance. Any dice that you don’t activate just go back in the cup, so you don’t lose tempo just for ‘rolling and assigning bad’.


Who should buy this game? Hmm, I dunno, how about everybody. It’s no snakes and ladders for sure, but if you can handle economics on a galactic scale, you need a copy of Roll for the Galaxy.


And if you’re not convinced, I’ll just start listing funny things it has: ‘Tourist world’, ‘Pirate world’, ‘Old Earth’. Old Earth is funny cuz its a home world that gives you a consumption dice and it can’t produce any goods.


Thanks, guys.


 

Don't own Roll for the Galaxy yet? No problem, you can find it on our webstore here.

 

 

Doug Moore





I'm an avid lover of all things table top. I also have a growing collection of board games which inspire me to create my own. I put my loud and expressive personality to good use as a dungeon master for my friends, having run many campaigns through 4th and 5th edition D&D. 

Follow him on Twitter 
@Dugggernaut

 

 
 

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