I sat here at my computer for a long time, trying to come up with a creative name for this review. I mulled over pop culture references (“SETI: The Truth Is Out There” and “You Can’t Spell SETI Without E.T.”) and science-y quotes (“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space” – Carl Sagan)… but I finally settled on the boring headline you read at the top of the page because I wanted to make sure that everyone knew I was going to review both the base game AND the recently released expansion.

SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence was originally released at Essen 2024 and has gathered a plethora of awards and recognition in the last year and a half:

• 2025 Spiel Portugal Jogo do Ano (Game of the Year) Winner
• 2025 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Best Expert Game Winner
• 2025 International Gamers Award Best Multiplayer Winner
• 2025 Deutscher Spiele Preis Best Family/Adult Game Winner
• 2024 Meeple’s Choice Award Winner
• 2024 Dice Tower Game of the Year Winner
• 2024 Dice Tower Best Strategy Game Winner
• 2024 Dice Tower Best Game from a New Designer Winner
• 2024 Golden Geek Heavy Game of the Year Winner
• 2024 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Winner
• 2024 Board Game Quest Awards Best Strategy/Euro Game Winner

And that’s just the awards it won – let alone all the nominations. As of the writing of this review in April 2026, SETI is #16 on BoardGameGeek. (It was #8 on my best new (to me!) games of 2024 list, even though I’d only been able to play it a single time.)

I have, thankfully, had the opportunity to play it a number of times since then… which means I’m at least semi-qualified to review both the base game and the expansion for you.

The Big Picture

Designer Tomáš Holek (along with the good folks at Czech Games Edition) have created a game about first contact with alien species that combines a number of elements into a cohesive whole. Players manipulate resources (money, energy, and publicity) as well as multi-use cards to power actions. Those actions lead to finding information about alien species that not only reward the player with victory points but also lead to expanding the nature of the game by revealing the aliens. 

In fairness, I ought to have written that the game is about first AND second contact, as two alien species are in play in each game. Typically, the first discovery takes place in the second or third game round (out of five rounds) with the second discovery often happening in round three.

There are a number of interlocking mechanisms in the design – for example, scanning the skies earns you data pieces as well as pushing you toward an “area control” victory for successfully tracking a particular portion of the universe. Those data pieces can later be analyzed to provide more information about one of the alien species. Chains like this abound in the game design.

How To Play

As per the usual for CGE, the rules are well-organized and combined with the excellent player aids make it easy to learn the game without resorting to multiple viewings of YouTube tutorials and playthroughs. (That said, CGE does have “how to play” videos on their website – both the base game and each of the base alien species.)

What I’m going to do here is give you an overview of how the game plays without going into minute detail. Let’s be honest – a lot of you skip this part and jump right down to the end of our reviews where we let you know what we like and don’t like about the games. So, in hopes of getting you to stick around, I’ll just hit the high points.

Each player has one main action per turn plus some additional free actions available to them. When a player passes, they draft a card and no longer participate in the round. (Dropping out first gets you the best pick of cards – but since cards are multi-use, I can almost always find something to do with any card. That means ending first isn’t necessarily a goal to strive towards.)

Before we go too far, I need to do a fly-by on how the multi-use cards work. 

• Upper left corner: you can discard this card to receive this bonus (pictured here – probe movement and publicity) – discarding a card in this manner is a free action
• Upper right corner: you can discard this card when scanning to mark one of eight different sections of the galaxy (four colors – two sectors per color)
• Middle left side: the cost to play the card for the effect outlined in the white area of the card
• Lower right corner: when tucked under your starting income card, it provides income for the rest of the game (energy, money, publicity, etc.)

The board itself is divided into a number of sections:

• The planets and moons of the solar system – this is where probes are placed when they become an orbiter or lander.
• The circular solar system (outer ring) – the eight sectors that can be scanned
• The circular solar system (solar map) – where probes move around the solar system – three eccentrically cut pieces are layered and rotated so that the board is not static
• The victory point track is around the outside of the circular solar system
• The storage area – this is where technologies reside and where publicity is tracked
• Shared goals – these randomly chosen goals score end-game points for players… players choose which goals they will score when passing certain thresholds on the scoring track

In general, the iconography is clear… and thanks to the well-made player aids, easy to look up when you’re not sure what a card or planet space is asking you to do.

The main actions (and their costs) are neatly outlined on the player aid. You can:

• Play card to resolve its action
• Launch a probe from earth
• Put a probe in orbit around a planet
• Land a probe on a planet
• Scan the stars for signs of intelligent life
• Analyze the data you’ve received
• Research new technology

The free actions include loading data into your computer system, completing a mission on a card you’ve previously played, buying movement (using energy), buying a card (using publicity), or exchanging resources (give 2 of something to get 1 of something else).

I mentioned chains earlier – so let’s talk about another common chain of events/actions in the game. You can launch a probe (main action) and then use energy to move the probe (free action). Every comet or planet it passes generates publicity which you can use later to research new technology (main action). Once you’ve reached a planet, you can turn that probe into an orbiter or a lander (both main actions) which generates a variety of points and resources as well as finding traces of alien life.

Traces of alien life accumulate and eventually unlock a new alien species. Each species has a different set of cards and mechanisms that affect the play of the game. Thankfully, CGE has a “this is how this alien works” player aid for each of the alien types. (I’ve enjoyed NOT reading about all of them before we played – the extra spark of discovering them for the first time was a lot of fun.)

Technologies are purchased using publicity. Their purchase rotates one of the solar system pieces and adds a special power to one of three areas on your board: your computer (making data collection more lucrative), your scanning array (making scanning more powerful), or your launch system (making it easier/cheaper/faster to launch and land probes).

There is a lot going on in SETI – but the one main action per player turn keeps the pace of the game moving. The puzzle of how to use your limited resources to both build your engine and accomplish your goals is very enjoyable.

The game ends when all players have passed in the fifth round. At that point, any played cards with end-of-game scoring conditions are scored. Players also score based on four shared goals that have been visible since the start of the game. (The earlier you chose a particular goal, the more points you can score.) Finally, some alien species have end-of-game scoring effects. Add that all together and determine a winner.

Solo Play

I’ve written a good bit about playing board games solo here on the OG – and SETI has been an excellent addition to my collection. Similar to the solo bot design for Lost Ruins of Arnak (also published by CGE), the card system is simple to implement which means that most of your playing time is spent obsessing over your own choices as you try to find alien life. Each alien species has its own solo card that enters the deck after they have been discovered.

The solo mode also uses goals for you to finish… failure to do so ramps up the number of cards in the solo deck with upgraded cards that make your life much more difficult.

The automa has five levels of difficulty – so far, levels one and two have been relatively easy to beat, with level three offering a challenge that is invigorating without being overwhelming. I’m a little afraid of levels four and five – but I’m planning my next solo game to be a level four.

Wrapping Up the Base Game

I think I’ve been pretty clear throughout the earlier part of this review how much I enjoy SETI. The excellent production, the fantastic player aids, the clear iconography, and the intriguing puzzle of the gameplay mean I’m not a bit surprised about how many awards the game has received.

I do need to note some caveats:

• It’s not a short playing time – my solo games clock in at 90+ minutes, two player games run about two hours, and my one three player game lasted two hours and forty-five minutes. 
• That said, I’d guess that four player games would run 3 – 3.5 hours. I’ll probably keep playing with 1-3 players. Your cosmic mileage may vary, of course.
• The storage system for the game is not particularly helpful. I found a 3D print storage system that I really like (which also can incorporate the expansion) and I happily recommend it to you.

Sneak preview: I’m currently going through my biennial top 100 games list over on my personal blog… SETI is on the list. 

SETI: Space Agencies

Much like the Hippocratic Oath, the first rule of expansion design is “Do no harm.” Thankfully, Tomáš Holek and the folks at CGE understand that – and created an expansion for SETI that adds interesting twists without over-burdening the game system. 

There are three elements to the expansion: more components for the base game, space agencies, and revising the solo mode to work with agencies.

More!

Space Agencies add 42 new cards to the main deck, three new alien species (with cards and various tokens), and a small set of signal tokens which are used in conjunction with some of the new main deck cards. 

All of these are added directly to the base game and can be used without the titular “space agencies” (organizations) part of the expansion. The new aliens are especially welcome, as they increase the variety of possible aliens to research and discover.

Space Agencies

The addition of space agencies to the game changes the initial setup. Players now receive two potential organization cards, three quick start cards, and four cards from the main deck. They choose a single organization (“space agency”) and two quick start cards.

Yes, this is similar to the corporation and Prelude cards in Terraforming Mars… and, much like the Prelude expansion, jump starts the game. (In fact, it kicks the system hard enough that the first round of the game disappears – you only play 4 rounds when using space agencies.)

Each organization has starting resources and effects, a slightly higher income stream than the original game start cards, a passive power that the player can use throughout the game, and a once per round special ability – often tied to the passive power. The quick start cards place pieces on the board as well as starting resources, points, and other potential effects.

In my experience, this part of the expansion doesn’t noticeably shorten the game – but it does shorten the amount of game time used to build your basic engine/income. I also like the asymmetric starting positions and the ability to create clever opening combinations.

I’m not particularly bothered by the comparisons to Terraforming Mars – I honestly think the smartest expansion to that game system is the Prelude cards, so adding a similar mechanism to SETI is a great idea in my book.

Solo Play With Space Agencies

The solo system has some small tweaks in order to make it work with the space agencies. Level one goals are removed and replaced by long-term objectives.

The biggest change is the adjustments for 1-2 players – at the start of the game, four quick start cards are flipped and the top half of the cards are used to place neutral pieces on the board. This change means that scanning is more productive than in the original base game and forces players to adapt based on what is already “out there”.

Wrapping Up the Expansion

If you enjoy SETI, the expansion is well worth having for the increased variety of alien species and main deck cards. The space agencies portion works really well and will be my “go to” way of playing from now on.

If you were put off by your first game of SETI, I’d encourage you to try again with the full Space Agencies expansion in play. I think it may solve some folks issues with the base game.

Thoughts from Other Opinionated Gamers

Matt C.: My first game was “only” a 3p game with only one of us playing before. It was looooong. Its sheer length is a big handicap to me because it means that it will be hard to get to the table. One of us somewhat ran away with the game due to endgame bonuses. I found myself sort of flopping around trying to figure out how to do things differently than others to try to specialize differently. It worked poorly in the early game, very well mid-late game, but finished poorly. Unfortunately, after my first play it wasn’t clear what I should have been doing differently. I have some ideas, but I’m not sure how they’ll play out. I do want to play again, but we’ll see how hard it is to get the time to play it.  (Note, I’m usually the most experienced gamer in my groups so pushing something this deep is unusual…) I have not had the chance of playing with the expansion but my hope is that it would reduce the length of the game (I know it adds a tad of complexity) which would be a big plus. I still want to play it again, so that’s a good thing. Mark’s plug of the solo mode may be what I need to try next…

Alan H: I liked the first 70% of the game. The theme and actions joined up so well and the competition was sufficiently challenging and interesting. Then came the disclosure of the aliens (which was exciting) but the change for me was dramatic. I didn’t like how all that planning and evolution turned into guesswork about how to receive victory points from each alien. It just didn’t connect with the first (enjoyable) part of the game, so I was really disappointed. It’s highly unlikely I’ll be playing it again.

Needless to say, the expansion has no appeal for me. 

Larry:  It took me a couple of games to grok SETI, but now that I do, I love it.  Figuring out how to best use the cards is vital and there are multiple paths to victory.  I understand Alan’s concerns about how the aliens drastically modify the game at the midpoint, but I just usually plan to focus on one of them and it’s worked out alright so far.  It’s definitely not short–figure an hour per player, at least at first–but we’re used to games of that length.  I do think this makes it a better 3 player game than 4, but a fast group could probably have fun with the top player count.  I’ve been told that the expansion improves some aspects of the game (including strengthening scanning, which some view as a bit weak), so I guess I could put aside my usual “expansions are evil” attitude and try it out.  But the base game is plenty good enough for me.

Ben B:  I have gravitated away from heavier games in recent years with an eye on accessibility so it took me quite a while to want to play this. That said it revived a desire to play heavier games in me. CGE did a good job with this one. Non-standard components, good clear card play, and a great rulebook lead this to not just be a success but an excellent game. We have played with 4 of the five alien races now and we can’t get enough!

Ryan P:  SETI as a base game, was on the edge of good/great for me. I kept it around, in the hopes that an expansion would come out with some improvement. I think Space Agencies has delivered that in spades, and now I consider SETI a surefire keeper. I really appreciate the prelude style cards that skip the first round of the game – SETI game length needed a cutdown. The asymmetric player powers are a favorite mechanism of mine. They aren’t game-changing, but they add enough spice to make me want to play repeatedly and try them all. I do have one criticism – I am not a fan of one of the alien factions added. I won’t spoil mechanisms, but the alien with the dark blue board, I strongly disliked. Still probably an all time top 10 expansion, and I highly recommend it for everyone who owns SETI.

Rating from the Opinionated Gamers

SETI (base game)

I love it… Mark Jackson, Larry, Ben B, Ryan P

I like it… Matt C., John P, Justin B

Neutral…

Not for me…Alan H

SETI: Space Agencies

I love it… Mark Jackson, Ryan P, Justin B

I like it…

Neutral…

Not for me…