“Somewhere in the middle of deep space, your galaxy is overpopulated and hopes to expand across the intergalactic planets. You will grow your fleet, expand your influence, and colonize planets in the name of intergalactic conquest. However, you are not the only empire looking to expand. Opportunistic rivals from other galaxies are growing just as fast as you and even the universe is not big enough for all your ambitions to come true. If you maneuver your fleet strategically, select the right planets and outwit your opponents, you can control the cosmos, leaving your rivals floating on worthless space rocks.”
If that catches your attention, then welcome to the world of Tiny Epic Galaxies from Gamelyn Games.
Epic Galaxies is not the first ’tiny’ offering from Gamelyn, a company which has found funding through www.kickstarter.com for a number of games which are characterized by being contained in a very small box, making them easily transportable, and easy to store.
If memories serves Tiny Epic Kingdoms was the first offering, a game based in a world of orcs and elves, which sounds right up my alley, but I missed the KS campaign on that one.
But I was around to see Tiny Epic Galaxies launch and again the theme really caught my attention.
We bought in, one among just shy of 12,500 backers who collectively pledged more than $400K toward the game. A copy was only $16 US.
The game is all about expanding your empire in space.
“Galactic empires are competing to colonize newly discovered planets. Earn victory points by colonizing planets and increasing your empire’s level. Whoever has the most victory points at the end of the game wins,” explains the objective section of the game rules.
The game by Scott Almes has some great elements, which to be honest escaped my gaming group on night one. The game played a bit flat, and my buds were under impressed. I had a sense from reading glowing comments on the game we had missed something.
So I hit a few video game reviews, which are one of the best things in terms of game resources out there these days, and we had indeed missed a rule that I realized would have addressed initial concerns in a major way.
The lesson here, check out the video reviews first.
The game is interesting in that while it initially launched as a two-to-four player game, by KS campaign end it had been expanded to allow five players, and there are solo rules included too.
A super weapons addition added a neat element as well, and it still all fits in a very compact box.
A bit more about the game comes from the company website.
“Tiny Epic Galaxies is driven by an exciting dice-rolling mechanic that rewards thoughtful programming of the results. Players control a home planet and a series of space ships within their own personal galaxy. As players upgrade their galaxies they gain access to more ships and more dice.
“Each turn, a player will roll a set of dice, how many dice are rolled is determined by the level of that player’s galaxy. Each side of the die (six-sided) represents a different type of action: Movement, Colony Action, Harvest from Culture Planets, Harvest from Energy Planets, Improve an Economic Influence, Improve a Diplomatic Influence.
“After the roll, the player then sorts the results of the roll (one selective re-roll is allowed) and organizes the dice in a desired activation order. Each die, in order, is then resolved and the results are immediate! This gets very exciting, as it allows the player to pull-off unseen combos and surprise other players. But don’t fret! Other players have the option to copy other player’s actions… at a cost!
“In addition to upgrading galaxies, effective resource management provides luck-mitigating options that can sway the game in a calculated player’s favor.
As players expand their galaxy by colonizing other planets through economic and diplomatic influence, they gain victory points AND the special powers brought in by those planets!
“You are the ruler of your galaxy and there are no limits to your expansion!”
This is a great little game, with high quality components and rules once grasped which work nicely.
This is one worth a close look, and lots of fun play.
Oh, and the newest offering from the company is Tiny Epic Western, which just wrapped up its KS campaign raising more the $400K, which again speaks to the popularity of the ’tiny’ offerings.
Check out Epic Galaxies, and other games at www.gamelyngames.com
