Stellar Drift: Review
Introduction:
Verb and Write games is a favourite mechanism for me, the more unique the verb is the more intrigued I am from Sonora being a flick and write game to an emergence of draft and writes like Boomerang and Draft and Write Records. Stellar Drift has brought a drastic change by creating a pull and write. On the base level players are pulling cubes from a bag each round determining the resources they can spend. As the game develops players will build their engine allowing for more cubes to be drawn per turn, more energy gained allowing for even more cubes or changes to the cubes colour, and since these are tangible resources players can even keep two aside for the next round. Players have a broken ship slowly drifting throughout space, players are using these resources to repair their ship by paying the right resources adjacent to a previously repaired location. In typical style of these games, players will gain bonuses as they repair their ship gaining one time benefits like more energy, ongoing benefits like more cubes/ energy drawn per round and about litoes that can be activated when the player chooses. Whichever player gains the most points at the end of seven rounds is the winner. This is achieved through upgrades, repairs and filling groupings of different colours as players repair their ship.
Game Anatomy:
Ship Sheet:
There are five unique ships in the game. Each with different difficulties, unique layout and altering ship effects. Each time a player goes to repair a room they have to pay the cube(s) at the top for the room and the location has to be adjacent to a previously filled room or the middle starting place. Some rooms have walls in between them illustrating that these rooms are not adjacent in the case of adjacency needed for repairing rooms. At the bottom of each room is the bonus that will be gained after the room is repaired.
Tracker Sheet:
The Tracker Sheet can be broken into three sections the captain skill, repaired section bonus and ship repair tracker.
As part of the setup each player will gain two cubes one of these cubes will select the captain skill for that player's whole game (matching cube colour). This skill can be used each round, once per round as an activated ability. Most of these skills cost energy, and one will cost a cube.
The repaired section bonus relates to the first time a player repairs a full section of rooms for that colour on their ship. They will gain a bonus three points at the end of the game as well as unlock one of the abilities that can be spent to receive the bonus during the game.
Lastly on this sheet are repair trackers. Five trackers can be found here, when repairing and increasing on other trackers these symbols will be gained. Different benefits will be gained as players progress on these tracks some focusing on more specific purposes like gaining more upgrades or gaining energy/increasing energy gained each round. Some of the benefits are increases to the fifth track fuel, which is essential to a repaired ship. The further players progress on the track the more points they will gain at the end of the game. The fuel in specifically more focused on points.
Tech Sheet:
The tech sheet contains several useful details including how much energy and cubes are gained at the start of each round. A bottom section containing a round tracker as (detailing each step of a round); spent cubes and reference for the phases.
The main element of this sheet are the upgrade trackers. Each upgrade tracker will score the highest unlocked points as well as unlock different abilities that can be activated (by being crossed off) during the game. Each turn as part of the upkeep one of these upgrades will progress. Whenever a lock is crossed off the activated ability to the right will be unlocked to be used at the players discretion.
Cubes:
There are four types of resource cubes yellow, red, green and blue (kind of purple). Each round players will pull a set amount of cubes from the bag, then allocate the cubes to repair the ship and achieve other efficient combos. When the cube is used it will be moved to the spent section on the tech sheet. Based on the player count only a set amount of cubes are included in the bag. This visibility of spent cubes allows players to understand the probability of cube types when choosing to spend energy to draw more cubes.
Two cubes per round can be kept as additional cubes in the next round.
Energy Tracker:
The energy that players can spend each round is tracked on a physical board with a plastic energy token. Any unspent energy will progress to the next round. Energy can be spent in two main ways. Two energy can either be spent to draw another cube from the bag or to change the colour of a cube
Ready Tokens:
Since this is a simultaneous game, players will be repairing the ship at the same time, spending energy / cubes, applying cascading bonuses and activating their captain skill or unlocked abilities. At the start of each round this ready token will be flipped to the repairs in progress side (red). When a player has finished their repair phase they will flip to the repairs completed side (green) to signal to other players. Once all players are completed the round will progress to the cleanup phase. These could have been cardboard tokens or not even included. Instead Mystic Tiger Games have included a very impressive and sturdy token that is simply an excellent production decision, as well as a fun token to play with while waiting for other players.
Setup:
- each player gains a ready token on the repairs in progress side and an energy tracker with an energy disk.
- Place cubes of each colour into the bag based on player count. 5 each for 1 player; 6 each for 2 players; 8 each for 3 players; 10 each for 4 players and 12 each for 5 players.
- Each player pulls two cubes out of the bag. One of these cubes the player will choose their captain skill for the entire game. The other cube will cross off two spaces on the matching upgrade track. If a blue cube is selected instead the first part section of each upgrade track will be crossed off. The cubes are then placed back in the bag.
How to Play:
Stellar Drift is played over seven rounds. The game is simultaneous with an income phase, upgrade phase, repair phase and cleanup phase.
In the income phase players will gain energy and cubes equal to the tracker on the top of the tech sheet. Through clever planning and progress players can increase these trackers to allow for more options in each round.
In the upgrade phase players will select one upgrade track to progress once in.
The repairs are the main phase of the round. By spending cubes players will repair their ship and chain combos to progress through tracks. Each room repaired has to be orthogonally next to a previously repaired room or path specific to the ship. Some rooms have walls which remove adjacency from certain orthogonal rooms. In the repairs phase players can also spend their energy to draw more cubes or change the colour, activate a captain skill and activate any unlocked abilities (one time use). When a player is completed they will flip their ready token to the repairs completed side. When all players have done this the cleanup phase will commence. In this phase players can reserve two cubes if not spent this round, all players will return their spent cubes back into the bag and flip their ready token back to "in progress".
After the seventh round scoring will commence. Each player will score completely repaired sections in their ship (the points are shown next to these sections), they will score a bonus of three points for each unique coloured section filled in the ship, the most recent score on the ship repair tracks and the most recent score on the upgrade tracks. The highest score will be the winner.
Final Thoughts:
- Five different ship setups with some slight asymmetry.
- Amazing production.
- With three sheets of paper it can feel like a daunting write game, instead it has very approachable gameplay.
- Interesting element of counting the amount of cubes left in the bag for each colour. Creating a push your luck effect.
I am always intrigued by unique verb and write games. Stellar Drift creates a very unique feel by being a pull and write. Essentially in each round players are pulling cubes from a bag and using these cubes to pay for repairs on their ship. These lead into combo-chaining as players gain bonuses for repairing certain rooms. Energy can also be spent to add more cubes or change colours if needed. There is only a set amount of each cube colour in the bag based on the player count. This creates an interesting push your luck element when more cubes are drawn during the round. Something Stellar Drift excels in is a tangible feeling verb and write. Cards and dice are great in this genre of games, but sometimes the resources available can get lost when players are busy combo-chaining. Stellar Drift physically has energy and cubes which create an easy to track atmosphere keeping the players on task. Even better two cubes a round and unspent energy can be kept between rounds, creating interesting decisions on when to use these resources. Stellar Drift is easily earning a Go To Golden Seal. Verb and Writes are easily one of my favourite genres. Stellar Drift both has a mix of new elements while also learning from previous verb and writes. If you like any games in this genre I can easily recommend Stellar Drift.
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