Once upon a time, there was a tiny company located in a small town in Tennessee…and through hard work and careful planning and taking the time to get it right, they managed to produce a game that won multiple awards and spawned two very successful Kickstarter funding campaigns.

The company is Kinson Key Games in Athens, Tennessee – seriously, Athens is NOT a big town – and that game was and is Galactic Cruise. I wrote a very positive review of it as a solo game last fall.

The next game on the way from Kinson Key is Excursions – and that’s likely the reason you’re actually reading this game preview. Excursions is set in the Galactic Cruise thematic universe, but it is not an expansion to the original game. It’s probably more accurate to describe it as a close relative – both games share similar bloodlines, but they do some things very differently.

Vive la différence!

We Still Work for Galactic Cruise, Inc.

As players, we are still employees of the same company we met last year – but now we are working out of the Preston Space Station as cruise directors. Our job is to keep the customers happy (and spending credits!) by planning excursions for them. In the process of creating these eponymous excursions, we keep doing many of the things that made the process easier back when we were launching ships in Galactic Cruise: developing our network, upgrading our systems, and investing in new technologies. We’re still using advertisements to entice customers to take trips as well as making sure that each excursion shuttle has plenty of food and fuel.

Obviously, some things work differently up here in a zero-gravity environment. No longer limited by the pull of the Earth’s gravitational forces, we can all take our turns at the same time. (Yeah, I know, my explanation for this game mechanic change is completely junk science – work with me, people!)

The space pilot’s union evidently has mandated a strict work schedule, as shuttles only proceed to their next destination on a tightly regulated basis. Additionally, pilots are now robots who also sport a handsome bow tie. (No, that has nothing to do with the rules of the game – but it has amused me every time Excursions has hit the table.)

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Excursions designer Ben Rosset has a history with designing simultaneous action games – The Game Makers (Bezier Games), Fromage & Formaggio (Road to Infamy Games) Between Two Cities (Stonemaier Games), and even the upcoming Small Batch (Paverson Games). While this particular mechanism won’t work with every game design, it does a splendid job in Excursions of keeping the action moving and offering players enough control to make solid decisions but not so much control that it bogs the pace of the game down.

Each turn begins by checking to see if there is a visible pilot icon on the space station. If so, each shuttle in flight advances to the next stop on their cruise and resolves the various effects.

Next, the active player chooses one of the seven possible main actions that all players can then use:

• Take 2 credits (money!)
• Take 2 passengers
  • The active player gets to choose the type of passenger while the other players simply draw from the bag
• Take 2 excursion cards – and then schedule them into one or both of your cruises
  • The active player can choose from the row of face-up cards while the other players simply draw off the top of the deck
• Take 2 ad tokens
• Purchase an upgrade
• Purchase a development
• Launch either or both of your shuttles

The active player also receives the bonus action connected to the main action they chose.

Any player (including the active player) may use one of his own adjacent developments (gears) to choose the adjacent main action. The active player may use his development to choose an adjacent bonus action.

There is a consolation prize choice for non-active players who cannot or do not want to use the chosen main action – they can take either 1 credit, 1 ad token, 1 card, or 1 resource (food or fuel).

If anyone has accomplished one of the three possible company goals, they mark it with a cube. If they are the first (or tied for first) to mark that particular goal, they get two points. Whether or not they were first, they then receive two funding bonuses.

Excursionary

This next section is like a dictionary for all the words that may not have made sense in my quick overview of the gameplay of Excursions:

• Advance the flight
  • All flights – regardless of who is the active player – advance to the next card(s) in their cruise.
• Type of passengers
  • There are 3 types of passengers – families, adventure seekers, and relaxing folks.
  • You can tell the relaxing customers are relaxing by the martini glass they’re holding onto with a death grip.
• Excursion cards
  • There are two types of excursion cards which pay out based on which passengers you have aboard
    • Days in Space (which generate “income”)
    • Excursions (which generate points)
  • For excursion cards, you can spend ad tokens as targeted ads to virtually change the type of a guest to the appropriate color.
• Developments
  • A similar mechanic to Galactic Cruise – these gears help connect you to other actions and bonuses as well as increasing your ability to store fuel and food.
  • They also allow you to develop technologies.
• Technologies
  • Each game will have four random technologies which enable players to achieve discounts or extra bonuses for certain actions.
• Upgrades
  • Each player board has a number of upgrades available – improving what you can get during cruises, letting you hang onto and play more cards, getting a better trade ratio for needed stuff, and increasing your scoring potential.
  • Upgrades cost 2-4 credits each.

The End Is Near

When one player crosses the 50 point threshold, the end of the game is triggered. The current turn is completed, then a final turn happens in which all players treat as if they were the active player. Finally, all players with active cruises may advance their cruise to any one card they have not yet reached and score it.

And then we total up the score!

• Add up all of your unused Food, Fuel, Ads, Cruise cards (both in hand and scheduled on an unlaunched Cruise), Money, and Guests (both in your Lounge and on unlaunched Ships).
  • Divide that number by 5 (rounded down) and score that many VP.
• Score 2VP if you have 4 or 5 Upgrades unlocked.
  • Score 5VP if you have 6 or 7 Upgrades unlocked.
  • Score 9VP if you have 8+ Upgrades unlocked.
• Score the VP of the rightmost empty column in the Development area on your Player Board.
• Score 2 VP if you have accomplished 1 Company Goal.
  • Score 5 VP if you have accomplished 2 Company Goals.
  • Score 9 VP if you have accomplished all 3 Company Goals.
• Score the VP on your Secret Goal cards if you meet their listed criteria.

In my experience over a couple of games, the end game scoring was half or more of the in-game scoring for most players.

Solo!? Count Me In

The solo mode for Excursions is still under playtesting and final development – but the Kinson Key team let us know that a prototype version of the automa existed. So, in my role as someone who writes a lot about solo gaming, I decided I needed to give it a try.

Well, to be exact, three tries. My first game was a nail-biter where I edged out the automa by 3 points. The less we focus on the second game the better, as the evil robot game thingee (aka “automa”) peeled me like a grape. The final solo game was another one that went down to the wire and I managed to defeat it by a single point!

Playing time for solo is 35-45 minutes with the prototype automa – but the good folks at Kinson Key let me know that the plan is for there to be multiple automa for players to face who have different quirks and play patterns. There will be 6 different solo bots (one on the back of each player board). Each bot will be different in play style and in difficulty. Playtesting is continuing to make sure they all work as expected.

Since I’m already a fan of the solo mode for Galactic Cruise, it’s nice to have a much more portable experience in the same universe. (One of my games was actually played in a hotel room on the desk while traveling for work.)

I’m A Fan

This is the part of the review/preview where the reviewer typically tells you about what he likes and doesn’t like about the game. Far be it for me to defy convention.

I think that Excursions takes a number of the clever design ideas from Galactic Cruise and mixes them with a simultaneous turn mechanic that makes for a very accessible and satisfying game experience. Both groups of folks that I taught it to had a great time with it – and you’re already familiar with my very positive vibes about the solo mode (even if I have some issues with the way the solo bot treated me in the second game).

One of those play experiences was with six players – including four people who had never played Galactic Cruise. While having experience with the Galactic Cruise system makes some of the game concepts easier to grasp, it was not a difficult game to teach even to the newbies. As they did with Galactic Cruise, the board is double-sided with a “first play” side (and starting setup cards!) that make it very easy to get new players up and running – while still leaving room for the variety and subtleties of the game to emerge with more plays under your belt.

In related news, the box size will make this a much easier game to cart to game nights (and on work trips – see above). I deeply love my copy of Galactic Cruise, but I need to go do some arm days at the gym to lug that box around. 🙂

The prototype production was top-notch – which is what I’d expect from the Kinson Key Games team. But the plans they have for the ACTUAL production are even better! (BTW, all of the pictures in this preview are of the prototype version of the game.)

There’s been some talk that this is a similar production/design choice to the work that Feuerland Spiele did with Ark Nova and Sanctuary. (For those who don’t know those games, Ark Nova is the heavier/longer design while Sanctuary uses some of the same mechanics in more straightforward and shorter tile-laying game. Both games are about building zoos.) I don’t completely disagree – because I own both Ark Nova and Sanctuary and am happy to play either of them… and I own Galactic Cruise and will own Excursions and am excited for either of them to hit the table.

Here’s the bottom line: I enjoyed the game enough to teach it to 9 different people and play it five times in two weeks. And now I’m waiting to get my own copy so I can play it some more. You can see if you’re interested by checking out the Kickstarter.