|
They See Me Rollin'... There's no way around it. Roll for the Galaxy is weird. It plays like its predecessor, Race for the Galaxy, enough to give a sense of familiarity, but no more. It also plays like dice-building games such as Quarriors or Dice Masters...but only a little bit. Roll for the Galaxy is definitely a unique creature, but it's a really, really good one. Superficially, the game looks like the card game from which it is based – you have a starting tableau of planets and developments, the phases of a turn are similar (explore, develop, settle, produce, and ship – although it should be noted that unlike in Race, shipping comes after production here, so you can sell the goods you produced this turn), and scoring works similarly – victory points are gained for shipping goods, settling worlds and building developments, and achieving bonuses from the most expensive developments. In this respect, learning Roll will be somewhat easier for experienced Race players. But that's where the similarities end.
The citizens of your empire are dice, color-coded to match their varying specialties. White dice are normal citizens, with an even spread of faces (the five phases, plus a wild); other colors have multiples of a particular face to indicate a preference for certain actions. For example, the military dice have multiple settlement sides. At the beginning of each turn, players roll all of their available citizens (which may not be all of their citizens – more below), and secretly place them on their assignment mat behind a screen. That indicates what roles your citizens want to take this round, but it doesn't mean they're all going to. You can take any one die and place it on one of the five different phase icons on your mat. Much like the role cards in Race, this determines which phase of the turn you are making happen. Unlike in Race, you don't get a privilege for selecting the phase...except that the die you use to indicate your choice counts towards that role, regardless of its actual result. This takes some getting used to. Additionally, there are special powers that may allow you to reroll or force new results on dice before they are assigned. Once dice are assigned, they are revealed, determining which phases of a turn will happen. Any dice assigned to a phase that isn't happening this turn go back in the cup to use next turn. Then, the phases that do occur, happen in order, simultaneous for each player:
After a citizen does their job, they don't go back into the cup. They go onto the “Citizenry” space of a player's mat, and that's where money comes in. In order to get your citizens back into the cup so you can put them to work again, you need to pay $1 per die at the end of the round. So, in addition to expanding your empire and shipping goods for points, you also need to build a stable economic engine with which to pay your citizens. If you're broke, the game takes pity on you and you still have $1 to spend, but getting one lone die for your cup next round isn't going to get you very far.
Roll for the Galaxy isn't more complicated than Race, but it is more involved. Instead of choosing a role solely based on what you need this turn, you also need to take into account your dice results and see whether your citizens are going to do everything you want them to. The game takes longer, too – your first game of Roll will top two hours, easily, and once everybody is up and rolling (sorry, I had to say it), subsequent games will still be about an hour. But it's a really good hour, and if you ever said about Race that you like it, but wish it were a bit meatier, then Roll’s for you. That said, even players who haven't played Race will be able to grasp Roll by about halfway through their first play, and enjoy it. Components are high-quality, fantastic, and appreciated – dice cups for all players, screens, and a nice bag for your planet/development tiles.
Fast Facts:
|
