From the first moment when I unboxed it, I really fall in love with SpaceCorp . My initial experiences were with great solitaire module for that title. When I was playing against the bot (Competition) my two sons (5 and 7 years old) were very interested and excited, observing the game especially when Aliens started to appear. Thus there was no doubt we need to play together a “competitive” game. I managed to convince my wife – she really does not like Sci-Fi games but agreed to act as a strategic help to younger one – and we were ready to start!

Mariners Era

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Mars colonized!

In our first Era I was gradually familiarizing other team members with games mechanics. The focus was not so much on points as on “discoveries” – the young apprentices simply love to draw those tokens as it is always a mystery what you will get  – maybe an attraction, maybe minerals or some organic life! 🙂

Planeteers Era

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Close up on our exploration of Solar system

In our second Era the real game – and real space travels started. Natan was very focused to be First Beyond – he got all the bonuses for this in our game. Magda + Kuba were mainly builders. I, in my effort to explain everything, did not have any coherent and visible strategy 🙂

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Status after second era

The results after Paneteers were much more diverse and we managed to travel through all the planets!

Starfarers Era

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Close up on our colonization effort across galaxy

The complexity grow exponentially with last Era but with proper guidance all players were able to catch up 🙂 A true colonization effort is visible above, with eight stars systems with inhabitants from Earth.

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Status after third era

The struggle for points was fierce, as the Starfarers allows for multiple sources of VPs. Also, the contract values and production capacities grows. Not to mention multiple Breakthroughs and Adaptations. Still, Magda and Kuba managed to pull best combos, I colonized a lot of stars while Natan – almost by himself – reach very high points values.

Summary

We really had tons of fun playing that game; it is so thematic and so educational for children – they know now exactly what Move, Explore, Build means in English as well as  what planets are in the Solar system. They love it! And all those Aliens and thrill whether you will get a friendly one 🙂 Of course, let us be honest, that was not the real competitive game but that was not the goal. A quality time spent with family and boardgames during the weekend – that was a great choice! More will come!