Board Game Review: Alien Frontiers

The Greatest Husband in the World and I were some of the early investors in the game Alien Frontiers over at Kickstarter.com, so it was a real pleasure to finally see this game "in the flesh" and put dice to board after so much anticipation. Here's our review of our earliest plays.

Play Scenario:

This review is based on two initial plays of the game on two separate occasions. Both games employed 3 players.

Game Objective:

This is a retro-stylized space game where players compete to build and establish "colonies" (read: little wooden dome tokens of their given color) on an alien planet, and thus earn points to win the game. All the players are competing for the 8 different slices of the planet pie, and will employ plenty of treachery in order to dominate as many territories as possible.

Turn Mechanics & Game Play: 
In order to dominate this alien planet, all the Major Toms (that would be you) need to collect resources, manipulate game bonuses, and build colonies. This is done by rolling between 3-6 dice each turn, and then placing the actual dice onto the board in worker placement fashion. The dice themselves are referred to as your "ships", and can "land" in different resource areas on the board according to your rolls. (Think Agricola, except that instead of placing your farmer on a "wood" space, here you're placing your dice ships on "gray ore" and "orange fuel")

Different dice combos and numbers will help determine where you can distribute your "ships". Roll a 3-of-a-kind? Score, you can land those three "ships" on the "Colony Constructor" slots and pay to build a new wooden dome dealy colony and place it on the main planet. Roll a 5? Sweet, that's high enough to meet or beat the highest die/ship over at the "Lunar Mine" slots--looks like it's time to collect some "ore tokens" (read: little wooden gray cubes).

 
Of course, there are limited slots where the players can place their ships, so you better hope no one cock-blocks you right out of your goals.

When each person has placed her dice ships all around the board and completed all the subsequent actions dictated by the placement, then the turn is over and it's the next person's turn to roll and place.

Oh yeah, and there are some special powers granted by "Alien Tech cards", which are designed to give all sorts of bonuses and/or do damage to others. Any player who dominates a territory of the planet also receives a bonus power. So there are lots of ways to goose your abilities and screw over other people.

Out of the Box:

This game looks straight-up beautiful. The board is vibrant, as are the sets of player dice. I thought we might have to upgrade the dice sets to something more insanely fun, but there's no need; The designers rightly decided to go for vivid colors and quality pieces. The colonies, gray ore, and orange fuel tokens are standard painted wooden pieces (better than plastic!), and the score track is a glossy cardboard rectangle that is separate from the main board.

Praise:

+The theme, along with its vibrant colors and retro card illustrations, are fun (if not totally unique).
+The dice mechanism is refreshing and fun. I know, I know--dice equal chance. But since a bad roll will not truly cripple your play (it'll just make you change your game plan), the mechanism is more fun than frustrating.
+This game is combative. (And usually I love combative games. Cooperation is for Girl Scouts and Kindergarten teachers!) Players can shit in your Cheerios by stealing your resources, claiming control of your territories, blocking your special abilities, blocking resource slots, and more. Is it too much combat though? (see "Complaints" below.)
+Players have a major ability to make a comeback. Just because one person's way ahead on the leader board, that doesn't mean the game is locked up. This keeps the game tense and constantly changing.

Complaints:

-There's certainly an element of Analysis Paralysis in choosing where all of the dice should be placed each turn. Certain drag-asses may benefit from having a turn timer added to the game. Don't play with indecisive people.
-Chance. Yep, there are dice in this game, so us mere mortals cannot fully manipulate and control our own game play. Fortunately, much of this is mitigated by the wide array of options for using your dice. As noted above, a bad roll won't tank you or piss you off too badly. But still, they're dice.
-Is the "Raiders' Outpost" too powerful? The "RO" is used by placing a run of three dice, allowing you to steal 4 (count 'em, 4!) resources, or a card, from any one player. Four is a lot, people. Especially since those four can include the expensive gray ore tokens. You can castrate another player with one easy maneuver, since the resources are somewhat critical to building colonies and it can take an entire turn just to stockpile three or four resources. And the RO user can do this over and over...and over again. Maybe it should only be one or two resources stolen?
-The scoring track is pretty arbitrary and not necessarily a reliable gauge for your game performance while the game is ongoing. Here's the thing: You can lose points as you lose control of territories you previously held. As a result, this game's very much like a basketball game: The score only really matters in the last five minutes of play.

Overall:

This is a fun game. I'm not a "space theme" person, as sci-fi normally bores me. There. I said it. But in spite of an initially unappealing theme, this game is extremely enjoyable and the theme was just this side of pretentious and convoluted.

Overall, the game is well-balanced (maybe except for the Raiders' Outpost bit) and was obviously thoroughly play-tested. All three players thoroughly enjoyed the dice placement mechanism enough to negate the usual grumbles about chance. I was also delighted that the the Alien Tech cards, which at first seemed somewhat tacked-on, ended up being instrumental to gameplay to just the right extent; they're powerful without overriding basic game elements or focus.

Game length is pretty much perfect for this game. We spent about one hour on our second (more seasoned) game, and that felt just right. After playing the Battlestar Galactica Board Game, I have a Charlie-in-the-trees type of fear of epic space games that take hours to play. This is not true for Alien Frontiers. Once you've mastered the rules, expect this to be a game that can be repeated a few times in a single evening.

We will not only be keeping this game in the Board Game Closet of Glory and Doom on a long-term basis, but this is also one that we will trot out fairly regularly, and would be excited to teach novice gamer friends.

Similar Games:
This game is a distant relative of Agricola in many ways, thanks to its worker placement ways. Except, it's not as constricting and nail-biting as Agricola. A little more flex and fun make this a more easygoing version.

Pimpability:

The domed colony tokens are just begging to be replaced by tiny little space colony miniatures...of some sort. I'd be surprised if several sets haven't been pimped to this end already. A truly enterprising person may also consider replacing the wooden gray ore and orange fuel resource pieces with polished stones. Aside from that, the game is pretty solid as-is. Even an organizer tray for the box is pretty unnecessary since little baggies suffice nicely to house dice sets, tokens, and cards.

Game: Alien Frontiers
Designer: Tory Niemann
Published by: Clever Mojo Games, 2010
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 1-1.5 hours
AIBG Age Recommendations: 13-60
Average Retail Price: Out of Print currently (will be reprinted soon, $39.95)

Grade: A-