Space exploration, dice manipulation, resource gathering…”Stellar Leap” has a lot going for it. In this game, players will be trying to earn the most prestige (victory points) by completing missions, growing population, discovering new planetary bodies, and so on. Like in “Settlers of Catan”, resources are earned by rolling dice. Whoever has rested population on the planets of the numbers rolled will earn resources! I personally like games like this as it keeps players invested even when it isn’t their turn.
“Stellar Leap” also uses a rather simplistic mining system where a single die of value “3” is placed on an asteroid when discovered. Players who mine said asteroid earn resources equal to the highest die value rolled + the base value on the card. The number of dice rolled is equal to that asteroid’s die value. After every mining event, the asteroid die value goes down by one. It’s an interesting mechanic though still suffers from RNG…you could roll three dice from a fresh asteroid and roll a “1”, “2”, and “1” so 2+Base value. Then someone else might come along and roll two dice and get “5”, “6” and so 6+Base. I like the idea, it’s just a bit too random.
Combat is also simplistically weird and is the ONLY thing that I disliked about this game. All you have to do is ensure you have more population than anyone else at a location and boom, for an action you can kick them out to another planet. I can see why you may want to do this, as some player and universal dice manipulating powers may allow you to force a certain number. Having two or three planets controlled under that number is very dangerous especially if you can force said die roll to that number. Still, I would like to come up with some kind of peaceful variant and forgo combat altogether.
Despite my dislike for the combat, everything else was top notch. This game is in the running for the DGA Awards (or at least the honorable mentions). I enjoyed it THAT much. You can play solo/with AI bots of varying difficulties adding to the replayability. You can lengthen or shorten the game by adding or removing the amount of event cards needed to end the game, which is convenient. The color scheme and the art were superb…though the yellow and orange colors were a bit too similar for my liking. You can learn about the game and watch us play through it in the video below. Stick around to the end to see our first impressions.
Disclosure: I received a press copy, but any and all opinions are my own.
Final Verdict: 9/10 (Outstanding)
—