Cardboard Alchemy · 2024
Deluxe Edition includes upgraded miniatures, UNITY solo mode, 5th player expansion, GameTrayz organizer, and all stretch goals. Standard pledge matches retail edition.
Full Deluxe/All-In editions only available on secondary market. A Supernova Component Upgrade Kit exists to bring the standard version closer to deluxe quality.
Edge of a collapsing galaxy — you're building a space station, recruiting alien leaders, and claiming planets. Sci-fi opera with gorgeous art and chunky modular station tiles.
Your workers are upgradable starships with unique abilities. Place them on a shared galaxy map to claim resources and territory, then build out your personal space station with modular tiles. A targeting system replaces dice-based combat with tactical, predictable fights. Many actions involve multiple subtasks — deeper and more involved than its predecessor.
Each turn you either deploy a starship to the galaxy map or recall your ships home. Deploying lets you harvest resources, fight raiders via the targeting system, or claim planet majority. Back home, you spend resources to build station modules that snap onto your player board, unlocking permanent bonuses and new abilities. Your starships level up over time. The event system introduces galactic threats that change the landscape each round. Asymmetric factions give everyone a different starting engine and strategy direction.
Moderate — competing for planet control, shared worker spots, and area majority. Raiders actively threaten you unlike the avoidable monsters in Dwellings. Indirect conflict but you feel the squeeze.
Very high — modular galaxy setup, huge variety of leaders and station tiles, asymmetric factions. No two games play the same.
Large
Large. Central galaxy board plus personal station boards that grow outward. Needs a full dining table.
Teach takes 25-30 min. Lots of interlocking systems but turns are intuitive once you get going.