Space Base Review - JonGetsGames

Here is my Space Base board game review. Review copy of the game was provided by the publisher. Look below to skip to each section of the video:
Positive Review Points - 10:16
Neutral Review Points - 13:36
Negative Review Points - 16:43
Variability - 20:45
Player Count - 21:58
Conclusion - 23:45
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[@chadjacobson2679]

Man, your reviews were in another class. No one before or since has done better. I understand as someone who does reviews why you don’t anymore, but at the same time it’s definitely a loss for the community.

[@evandercaldwell9993]

One of the best boardgame tutorial channels BY A FAR STRETCH, mainly also because of the camera close-ups, that actually show the cards and the game and make it actually comprehensive!! I always watch this channel on 0.75x playback speed though, as Jon talks too fast for my brain to follow lol!! 😂 Jon on 0.75x is very relaxing!! Thank You Jon for Your very valuable contribution to the boardgame community!! 😇

[@Buttonmstr]

I was a part of a board game group pre-Covid and there are some games where I am basically just taking the turn for certain other players. It slows down the game like crazy when every time their turn comes around, they ask, "okay, now what do I do?" They're also most likely to be the ones to complain about the game taking too long. It's like, "Bish, it's taking so long because of you!"

[@harmweber9848]

Very nice review. I have also taken the "Lose 4 pts" card out of the game. As for the AP aspect, if I'm playing with five, I just say that to the player (and it's usually one player) who is lost in AP land. I've also created a variant on the beginning of the game with an auction to purchase four level-one cards so that the game doesn't take so long to ramp up. When we play two players we take a dummy die roll between turns so that there are three passive turns between active turns. Moves the game along nicely.

[@adamcarr9077]

Awesome review! Thanks.

[@tozmom615]

Good review Jon. Thanks.

[@CH-xg9dx]

Great review - I've already pre-ordered this one, and glad I did!

[@arturmachno2223]

I miss your reviews so much..... Great work!

[@JonGetsGames]

FYI I do make review type content still, but they go out as Patreon exclusive Opinions vlogs. I know Patreon isn't for everyone, but feel free to check it out if you are curious :)

[@TheSpruta]

Cool review. I'm now interested in the game. I was worried when I saw that the negatives section was longer than positives or neutrals, but I'm happy that worry didn't pan out.

[@matts3155]

Haha, I thought the same thing! I am interested in the game and will promptly remove the bad card. Thanks Jon!

[@anshuljoshi6149]

thank you for this review.

[@acegibson82]

Great video, thanks!

[@garrisontold746]

Hello there, as always you doing just so good with reviews , explaining and presenting the game that i just cant add anything ar say beyond good words! really you doing it soo professionally :))) HIGH SHIP VARIETIES SOUND VERY EXCITING , GIVING THE PLAYER CHOICE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO FELL THE GAME as for the game takes too ling because some people overthinking well ...there is two buts ...one is that there always people who think about their turn before their turn come down and that way they always prepare and don't need time ( it's me!) and there always those who just looking on all others gamers , watching and starting to make strategies and think about noly at their turn...which is annoying. as for second but , sometimes i like games where i can relax and just overthink about strategy and my way of movement , talk to other people in the process and make fun times :)

[@michaelgrayer7351]

Hi Jon, great review, just wanted to highlight a small point for your consideration for the Klingon subtitles... 20:10 - once the super-mean "opponents lose points" ship gets deployed - opponents should not be losing points every time a 7 is rolled. Instead, the owner may place a charge cube on the red square next to the text, but can't actually activate that ability until it comes round to their turn again. Mind you, in practice, this only changes things if more than one opponent rolls a 7 before the owner of that deployed ship has their turn again, which isn't going to be a scenario that happens that often. It's still going to be a significant drag and playing it the right way isn't going to make it much less un-fun if you're already finding it un-fun. Whether to leave that card in or take it out is going to be a matter of taste, but it's good to know that you have the option! Lovely review, just picked up a second hand copy of the game and I'm very excited to be playing it. I love a game about manipulating probabilities. :) Ever played Favor of the Pharaoh?

[@JonGetsGames]

That is a good point, it is a max of 1 activation per round but overall as you said it's a minor difference. I'll add a note about this. I haven't had an opportunity to try Favor of the Pharaoh or the original game it is based on unfortunately.

[@dchampagne68]

What we did with the problem card (13) We put a house rule on it. It only affects the first player who's in 1st place If you are the first player and have the card, nothing happens.

[@texasbelliott]

Man, great job. I really learned a lot.

[@mattymo56]

Thank you!!! I couldn't understand the charge rule.

[@JonGetsGames]

Glad I could help, that was certainly the hardest part for me as well.

[@NakedGamer]

Are you planning to do a play through? would love to see how this game flows. Also could you reduce the pool of cards to stop AP? A selection of like 4 each could help quite a bit.

[@JonGetsGames]

Andrew Barnes I don’t currently have plans to do a plauthrough, though it’s certainly a possibility in the future. It was on my monthly poll for Patreon supporters and wasn’t close to the top when the poll ended unfortunately. I imagine reducing the card pool wouldn’t destroy the experience, though less ships means less possibilities of grabbing one that really works for the engine you are building. I do want to stress that the downtime hasn’t been consistent. I had a 4p game last an hour and with a different group it went well over 90min and both had the same type of ships up for purchase.

[@benseipert2578]

I just posted a playthrough to our channel, Talking Board Games. The are two potential issues I can see with making a smaller selection of ships. First, the ships are priced differently depending on tier, and even with 6 ships per tier sometimes you can only afford 1 or 2 different ships from a given tier. Dropping from 6 to 4 could possible prevent you from buying from a tier you otherwise could buy from just because of bad draws. Second, a lot of the fun and strategy comes from selecting which ship you wanna buy, each with different slots and rewards. Less cards might make your decisions too straight forward, making the game feel like it's playing itself. My recommendation would be ordering each tier of ships by cost so players can more quickly determine which cards they can afford at a glance. Hope this helps!

[@jamesroy007]

The reducing point card should be activated on your active turn....even you could red-charging it~ so...I dun think overpowerful....

[@schoko-fan4370]

But since you have to make it active first by placing a cube on it (card 13), only the second 7, that gets rolled would cause the effect and then the cube would be gone again and can only be put on the card with the next 7 - so it can technically not be actived too often - or did I get something wrong with that cube-space on it?

[@JonGetsGames]

I don't think you got that wrong, but it still felt like this was too often for us and it killed the fun in one of our plays entirely. Since it's just one card and not a pervasive mechanic, I have no issues pulling it out of the game.

[@arentol7]

You are misunderstanding how charges work. There are 9 phases to a turn. All Players Lose 4 Points can be triggered at will on phases 1, 5, or 7 of the current players turn. Dice Rolling is phase 2, Dice Allocation is phase 3, and Gain Rewards is phase 4. Charges are a reward and so are placed during phase 4. This means the currently rolling player can use that charge in phase 5, immediately after rolling a 7 and collecting the charge from the three prior phases. So basically this will be triggered every time the player rolls a 7, or if deployed it will trigger on that players turn every round after someone else rolls a 7. In a larger group this means it is quite likely to be used about every other round on average. As the game progresses many players engines will far outstrip this card so it won't matter much, but it can cause a slowdown, especially if it gets out pretty early.

[@furinkazan88]

@jongetsgame may I ask your opinion comparing this to Valeria Card Kingdoms?

[@JonGetsGames]

Sure, I used to own Valeria Card Kingdoms. I personally vastly prefer Space Base, and a big part of that is because I found Valeria to feel poorly balanced. Not from player to player, but the balance of how many resources you get seems way off. Every time we played we would all be drowning in resources which meant there was little tension as far as what you could buy and it created strange situations where people didn't want to buy lower level things becuase that would unlock higher level higher point cards that everyone could afford.

[@nahailyenvanakkor]

Have you tried Bad Company? It's a more lighthearted take on this mechanism (no interesting card abilities though).

[@JonGetsGames]

I have a copy here in the house but haven't had an opportunity to play it yet. It arrived right around when our limited in-person game nights were paused due to Omicron. I do look forward to trying my copy though.

[@BrianD0313]

You know I would like to see an expansion for this game that makes each player unique and asymmetrical

[@JonGetsGames]

They actually just announced the first expansion for this. It's not exactly what you mention, but still sounds interesting: boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/433838/english-first-edition

[@BrianD0313]

@@JonGetsGames So by reading the description, it seems like it's like Pandemic Legacy where it's a one-playthrough thing. At least there is replay value to the base game? But I think this game needs some asymmetry in the start. For example, a Character could be good at generating money early on but poor at every thing else. Or a player good at generating Income but poor at money. And maybe a character that specializes in Charge Abilities.

[@supercommando440]

Would this be fun playing SOLO... keep track of how many turns you took to get 40 victory points.... or something like that. Obviously the bottom portion of the cards wouldn't apply since you're solo (btw, by solo, I don't mean play 2 boards solo, against each other.... but play ONE board only). BTW, a 6:00 arent you supposed to bump up your victory point counter to 2? (you bought a rocket with 2 VP's).

[@JonGetsGames]

The rocket only gives you the points when it is activated, not when purchased.

[@Vysetron]

This isn't a negative, I just find it so funny how many games you say are best at 3. Even the ones where you haven't played 3 yet.

[@JonGetsGames]

That's an interesting observation. 3 is a great player count in general for games because it allows for more player interaction than 2, but usually has less downtime than 4 or more. I think I tend to default to 3 being my favorite for just about any game, and then modify that opinion based on the specific mechanics of that game which may end up changing my mind one way or another.

[@LordElfiian]

Love three as well with most games. There are so many, espesially euros, that drag with an added 4th player.

[@DanielSolis]

Could the game survive removing that one slow "7" Ship?

[@JonGetsGames]

Absolutely. It’s a one off copy so in many plays it won’t show up at all. This way I just make sure it never shows up instead of rarely.

[@RonnieLunn84]

I hated Machi Koro because of the amount of take-that mechanics that made it literally impossible for some people to do anything, especially with more players. This looks like the same idea but MUCH more balanced.

[@anthonypimentel2306]

Ronnie Lunn It is definitely not anywhere close to as take that as MK, and in fact, I think he mentioned the only card to my knowledge that does negative actions towards another player. To put it into perspective, I loathed MK, am lukewarm on Valeria: Card Kingdoms, but love this.

[@MoriMemento117]

@@anthonypimentel2306 I feel the same way about Machi Koro. Loved the idea, but those red cards... ugh. They are mean and just drag the game out - shifting around money rather than creating anything new. My friend loves the game, though, for the very same reasons I grew to hate it. From what you describe, Space Base sounds like my sort of game!

[@ryang2682]

I could see that i win card being a double edged sword with a group Getting a group of people who scrapped to get close to 40...and then pull that card out and they lose...might cause some heat