Corps Blimey

 With a few days off work I was able to attend a games night held at Sam’s this Saturday. Chris, Adam H were also there and when I arrived, the game Space Corps 2025-2300 was already set up. I was green, for a change, but any attempts at channeling Martin came to nought.

The game is simple. Or, at least, is a simplified version of space travel which I assume is awfully complicated. Each player has a range of actions they can use to spread themselves across the solar system/galaxy. Move, Explore, Build are the bread and butter of our exploration but then there’s Revelation and Genetics, which give you access to better moves or special abilities later in the game.According to the rulebook, the genetics cube is a tan colour but, whenever Chris moved it he’d say “that’s one up the brown.”

In front of each player is a mat with three spaces for cards. This is called “infrastructure” and you’re supposed to fill this with cards that you can use on your turn instead of frantically discarding cards and hastening the end of the round. Also, your opponents can use it (you get a small reward of one card from the draw deck into your hand) to augment their own cards/infrastructure.

In round one, we four newbies didn’t bother much with our infrastructures and burnt through the draw deck in double quick time. This meant that the inner solar system was still largely unexplored when round one ended (in the year 2069) and we set off, past the asteroid belt, to explore the planets beyond. In this round, Chris and I barely bothered the score track and I think I was still on three points when we’d ended.

Round two introduced a new board with new rules. And radiation, such that at least one of your build/move actions needed to be shielded. I mistakenly played an illegal card to my infrastructure, and Sam realised he’d done an illegal move when pushing up his genetics cube. Plus, Adam snuck in and built a base on the asteroid that I’d just explored. That’s not actually cheating but it is a dick move, so Chris concluded that he was owed one.

I don’t think he ever took his “cheat” move, although Adam remained dickish throughout. He picked up a “co-operative empathy” card which allowed him to use an opponent’s infrastructure without them picking up an extra card as a reward. In other words, not co-operative nor empathetic.

As we continued to head towards the Oort Cloud, our pronunciation of Uranus went from sniggering double entendre to outright just saying “your anus”.

Round three began at 10.25 and we all stood up. By now we were looking at a decent chunk of the galaxy, with multiple bases around each star and a new option to Colonise a star system. With the new cognitive load, I sat down again at about 10.35. Little by little, I started to flake. I had a card that allowed me to pick up cards used by an opponent but I never stayed focused enough to register what they’d done. The distant stars on the board merged with the crumbs from the sugar-coated nuts and I started to need a calculator to work out if I could do an intergalactic space hop to the next unoccupied star.

When it ended, it was midnight. Adam had a win, thanks to being so “empathetic,” even lapping me on the score track. Sam came second, after having been in first for a brief period.

Adam 79

Sam 67

Chris 56

Andrew 24

I read out the text Sam had sent me, explaining how the game was easy to understand and super speedy, and then realised he’d said the first board was super speedy, which I suppose it had been.

Next time I’ll build better infrastructure and muck about a bit more with genetics and stuff. But with a game this long, taking up this much room, when will that be?

Thanks all. See you on Tuesday.