ORBIT
- David Fox
- 14 minutes ago
- 3 min read
'Prolific' doesn't even come close as an adjective to describe Dr Reiner Knizia's board game output... over 800 published games listed on BoardGameGeek, and that doesn't include his various puzzle series. During the recent glut of 'Reinerssance' output, alongside the many reskins and rethemes, there have been some actual new-new games released. A recent batch of three space-themed games from Bitewing gave us SILOS (aka Municipium), EGO (aka Beowulf: The Legend), and the race game ORBIT (aka the Travelling Salesman Problem).
You may have noticed an excess of capital letters there; that's because each title is an acronym, with ORBIT being an 'Orbital Race Between Interstellar Tourists'. That sums up the theme well and sets the expectation for the geometric-looking board that'll greet you when setting up. Each of the two to four players (double-down rules for an advanced two-player game) is charged with moving their spaceship around the board to visit all of the other seven planets in the game before returning to the one of their own colour.
The player boards track these visits, as well as the small engine-building aspect of the game, which is to slowly upgrade both the amount of cards you can hold and the number of vital energy cubes you can store. More cards gives more options, more energy cubes means more bonus movement above and beyond the 1-4 on each card. As well as chunky wooden planets, there are Space Stations on the board that can upgrade those stats, as well as granting other one-off abilities. So far, so regular: question is, what's the Knizia Twist?
Well, you can probably guess the twist from the name of the game: the planets you have to visit move. Ah! On an orbit. Aha! Sometimes backwards. Ah-- huh‽ Granted, that last bit isn't thematic, but it is a fun mechanism, so we'll let it slide... just like the planets! Their movement is triggered with every card played: orbital movement is one of the three elements shown, along with the spaceship movement value and a bonus. One or two planets - or one planet twice - move each time, although some cards trigger the movement of all eight. The bonuses are mostly refilling energy, but there are a few cards that let you reverse the direction of a planet of your choice.
It's the movement of the planets which is the main interaction point in the game: there's little you can do about other players choosing to upgrade their ship or dart about between hyperspace portals, but you can choose to use a wild card to whisk a planet away from someone if slowing them down is of more benefit to you, particularly if they're about to head home. As a mostly care-bear type gamer, it was this potentially negative interaction that put me off backing the crowdfunding campaign but, having played ORBIT several times, I feel the gameplay would be lesser without it.
The board game that ORBIT reminds me of most is Elfenland (AMIGO), the 1998 Spiel des Jahres winner by Alan Moon; he of Ticket To Ride (Days of Wonder) fame. I owned it, but never really enjoyed it, and moved it on without regret. ORBIT uses the same Travelling Salesman Problem as its core, but is much more approachable and, frankly, fun. Maybe that's just 27 years of evolution within the hobby or Dr K's design philosophy shining through, but it's still a fair base comparison.
There are some variants in ORBIT's very clear rulebook, notably about the two-player game, the flipside of the board with its diverging orbits, and an eighth static objective that is easily added in and a pleasant fixed relief amid the chaos. One thing that did irk me was the full-on description of how to play with the expansion, but the expansion is not 'built-in' but one you have to buy separately. Rules, but no pieces, eh? Well, that's what you get for not backing the KickStarter.
Overall, ORBIT is a very enjoyable race game with a changing course, which has good presentation, clear rules and refined gameplay that allows you take clever turns, mostly tactical, but with some strategy regarding ticking off boxes now or upgrading for more mobility later. You'll find it listed in the 'Family' category, which is fair enough, but I'd caution playing with anyone who's likely to be petulant when their target planet is yoinked away from them, especially in consecutive turns in a multi-player game.
Nice to know that Knizia's new designs are still, sometimes, out of this world.
(Review by David Fox)
