Space Station Phoenix Review - with Tom Vasel

[@ThomasLuongo]

Having now played SSP 5 times, this is EXACTLY what I want from a worker placement/engine designer game in 2022. Engine builders are boring, ultimately muti-player solitaire and more often than not you know who's going to win halfway through the game. SSP's multiple ways to end the game create real tension to undermine the various strategies people are employing to score points. Each time we play this our scores have gone down as people see the paths to end game better and truncate someone investing too heavily in their early game set up. Truly it is one of the best the industry has to offer in this type of game that will only get better with repeated play.

[@jillfromatlanta427]

Enjoyed playing this yesterday. . Other comments are correct in two areas - 1 yes it is easy to lose track on the track board (so other players would just announce out loud if someone earned a reward on their turn - problem solved) and 2 yes hard to see other players cards (so get up from your chair or lean over the table to see the type of card you are Interested in !! ) . A cool game

[@jenniferschlickbernd6280]

I think the reason the income criteria are so picky is that particularly in a four player game, a player may forget whether or not they took income their last turn. Their ships could be occupied by other players so it's not especially obvious that they took income their previous turn. So while I agree with your assessment, I think there is a valid reason for not stating it as you suggested.

[@clarenceneal2622]

Dismantling the ships for resources is the best thematic tie in for me. Purpose built ships that are designed to be used as the building blocks of the new colony/station after they get you there- think about it, it may have taken you decades to get to an undeveloped destination with no resources or infrastructure to use and your ships are all you have to get started with. Very good game that is much easier to understand than you would expect at first glance.

[@ThomasLuongo]

Thematically this is a follow up to Gabriel Cohn's other "Not a Looker But Damn Is It Good" Game... Exodus Fleet. The best version of Puerto Rico you've never played. There you are saving tribes of humans from a dying earth by building a fleet through hiring guilds to get the stuff you need. But EF suffers from small print and icons on cards... i.e. graphic design issues, which is odd because TMG (the publisher) was usually very good about this. But it's fabulous and deserves more love. I'd love for someone to reprint it with new graphic design. My copy of SSP comes from Amazon today. Can't wait.

[@nshaw1299]

15:00 Building an engine while dismantling the other one - Feels like it's becoming a thing now... Knarr, Evacuation...

[@DrMcFly28]

This looks like a perfect game to pull out when you want to scare new people away from boardgames as much as possible

[@TabletopFamily]

Oh wow,i hate the way it looks on the table did not expect that with the cover.

[@terryhutson4864]

good review I love this game--on BGA

[@heatherm9889]

I can't wait to get this game to the table!

[@thegamethemovie9605]

Looks totally doable 👍I do like games that have little downtime.

[@neosmagus]

It looks like New Frontiers mixed with Anno 1800, both of which I love, but both of which are also ridiculously intimidating to new players.

[@thegamethemovie9605]

The unbuttoned button... human observed 👁

[@rexology_bg]

This one won me over during the marathon play. I like the asymmetrical player powers and options in gameplay. Had low expectations going in, but it is now at the top of my list to play.

[@jameswoodard4304]

Do you remember when they played it? I can look dig through the vids and find it, but it would be cool if you remembered.

[@rexology_bg]

@@jameswoodard4304 Sorry, I don't.

[@jameswoodard4304]

@@rexology_bg , Never mind, thanks. I found it on the first vid I looked at! It's at the beginning of hour 5.

[@CaptLoquaLacon]

I always shudder when I see a game that looks like it takes up that much table space! It generally signals the type of game where I wonder if I can just play a computer game and have all the set up and upkeep handled for me

[@blackjack2150]

Word!

[@lufia22]

This looks like a neat game, but is it hard to see other people's actions when all this is on the table? That's one thing I didn't see you mention much.

[@chrissteele7472]

Once you know what the types of ships do (which you can see in front of you), you know everyone has similar ships, some just might be higher levels. So that's the only thing you need to know.

[@MadmanCZ]

I hurt inside everytime Tom whacks the board games with the hammer. 😭

[@thegamethemovie9605]

I could see playing something from the library, and saying, "Hey, this the tile that got whacked in the video."

[@shawnallenlott]

Ok

[@pierrewhite2062]

@jongetsgames has a great video playthrough of this one.

[@LegoAssassin098]

I love the theme on this one, but I feel like a video game with that theme would be better for me. I felt the same for that board game with the theme of "the moon was inhabited all along" (or something like that) but it turned out to be a run of the mill euro.

[@dankelly]

It seems like it would be difficult to see other people's ships to know if you want to take their actions... kinda like La Havre, but worse because every player has 9 from the start of the game.

[@chadripp9196]

the card ships are really simple: dismantle, dismantle +1, dismantle +2, build, build -1, build -2, etc -- so way way less info to track than Le Havre. and what they build into their space station won't directly affect you, so you don't have to worry about specific details as much

[@texascpa]

There's really only 5 actions to take and you're best to take that action on your ship. If you don't have it available on your ship, it's only then you need to check whether another player has it available. It wasn't that big of an issue in my game. The biggest issue was the game seemed to drag or more specifically, the engines just took too long to get moving. 3 player game took 3 hours and we're not prone to AP.

[@jameswoodard4304]

@@texascpa , Thanks for that comment on time. He said it was fast moving, but I don't think I would enjoy a three hour engine builder. [Edit: the BBG page says 60-120 minutes. Their numbers aren't always super accurate, but 180+ minutes seems excessive. If it's really that long for most people, they should change it. Is your group especially thoughtful in their gameplay (not necessarily AP)? For example, I usually don't tend to zip through turns even in quick games.]

[@boardgameasmr868]

Haha "imagine if you will, the expanse of space...covered in symbols...."

[@jameswoodard4304]

I wonder how long this takes to set up. The fiddliness of that one aspect alone might keep me away from this one. If pulling out and organizing the station pieces isn't as bad as it looks, this is a maybe.

[@npckse8508]

Nothing will top the Kilforth games for complex setups.

[@SamiPaju]

Looks like a ~10 min setup. Assuming you’ve stored stuff smartly in the box. And not counting the first steps where you’re drafting ships and choosing your space station centers.

[@karstenszajner6043]

Mechanically it sounds interesting but I’d never been able to table this with the spreadsheet looks and lack of immersive UI/Art. Space games like this have a long way to come in that regard.

[@jesuscoutofandino6280]

The day Rio Grande gives a check to somebody like Ian O'Toole ... dunno, maybe thats a Seal of the Apocalypse :P

[@MikeDV34]

Why don't you give "Components" its own time stamp? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

[@jameswoodard4304]

He probably doesn't think it warrants it as it's a much shorter section of the video than the others and is maybe less important in his mind than mechanisms and overall assessment. Also, you can just go to Final Thoughts and back up a bit.

[@MikeDV34]

@@jameswoodard4304 That makes sense, but with bigger games, the components section is often pretty long. I don't know...it would just be nice to have it separated. Components are important to a lot of people.

[@PowerPandaMods]

Seriously, the art is WAY too busy. It is difficult to distinguish the foreground from the background, and that makes the whole thing look cluttered and intimidating.

[@xCriticalStrikex]

This one sounds like I would really enjoy it, but I it looks very poorly presented. What a shame :(

[@andymcguire237]

This is a decent game, but it can really piss players off with the ability to use an opponent's ship. Ex. If you have the best diplomacy ship in the game, chances are high that you'll never be able to use it; it will simply be a crystal generator for you, which isn't as fun.

[@Tennethums1]

Just trying to see my own ships in addition to every other player’s ships, is a turn off for me. If I can’t see the cards clearly from the other side of the table then it’s just not fun. Spending much of the time asking, “what’s that card do over there?” Because you can’t see it…meh. Done with those kinds of games.

[@koalabrownie]

Game's got too much going on. Could never get my fam to play it.

[@marcosseven8872]

Rolling dice to get stuff? Passssss

[@chadripp9196]

its optional - all the same stuff can be collected with other actions, just different efficiency

[@jameswoodard4304]

That seems actually a bit thematic to me. You've built your engine (space station), then you have to adapt turn by turn to what resources you are able to scrounge up. This feels thematic to me in games with space, post-apoc, frontier, or exploration themes. If (in world) you are having to regularly scavenge the ships you are buying as a basic source of resources, you probably don't have a stable and predictable resource stream. But mechanically and player-experience-wise, I can see how it could be an annoying mechanism. Especially for engineer-brains that tend to like these kinds of games.

[@LasseKroner]

Man you lost me on the rules walkthrough 5 min in...