Space Junkers
- Board's Eye View
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
If you're looking for a board game that gives you an immersive 3D scifi-movie experience then Next Dimension Games have you covered. In Space Junkers, the 2-6 players are rival and unscrupulous salvagers, each trying to scavenge the most loot from a long-lost derelict spaceship. The game is designed by Mark Prentice.
Players each have characters that may or may not look familiar from sci-fi movie franchises. Each character has their own asymmetric ability. The ship itself is a striking three-dimensional construct - so players will be moving their character meeples through the ship's different levels. This doesn't just give Space Junkers great table presence; it makes for a much more engaging experience than moving pawns around a conventional flat 2D board.
Your actions in the game are dice driven, in that you roll custom six-sided dice and choose the one you will use. That die will give you several actions, not just movement, and it will show your combat strength if you decide to attack another player or if you're attacked. Depending on the die face, the die may even let you make use of the ship's facilities when you're at particular locations. Dice selection is simultaneously revealed so you don't know what the rival scavengers are going to be doing on their turn until you've made your own selection...
You're not just wandering through a ship picking up loot and fighting or keeping out of the way of other players. The ship has airlocks, so you can move outside the ship, and there are traps to avoid. Also, tho' the ship may be derelict it's not unoccupied... There's a hostile alien on board and you're likely eventually to encounter the ship's powerful Security Bot... The game offers individual mission objectives as an option. You might eschew these if you're playing with children or more casual gamers but we'd otherwise recommend incorporating them into your plays.
Event cards trigger changes that can shake things up each turn and players need to keep a weather eye on how they are faring on their individual reputation track because that doesn't just affect their score; allow your reputation to fall too low and you have to roll fewer dice, so have less choice over your actions...
Space Junkers has proved to be a big hit with the Board's Eye View team. The game has a sandbox feel to it, in that you aren't forced into following a particular path; you can go for speed and stealth, and try to avoid combat, or you can get your blaster out and muscle other players. That said, your path may well be influenced by your character's asymmetric abilities. However you play tho', Space Junkers is sure to deliver memorable moments that you'll muse over and talk about long after the game has been packed away. You may forgive your friend for pushing you into the path of the Security Bot but you won't quickly forget it!
Next Dimension are launching Space Junkers at Gamefound on 14 July. Click here to get on board.
