Onward to Venus

By Martin Wallace who also made mythotopia. Anyone know that game?

Only played once so far but really like it. Fly out from earth collecting discovery cards, conquering mines on distant planets and building factories which act as a combined economic engine and area control victory point empire. You'll have too much fun to even notice the elements of worker placement. The artwork is spacepunk awesomeness. Loads of theme with aliens rising up against you in revolt (based on a graphic novel). 1.5 hours seems about right. Works well with two and certainly will with at least 3. Feels pretty unique. Looking forward to the next play. Currently available stupidly cheap online.

I should mention that the video reviews are probably right. Base rules random card drawing would be stupidly random. We played a variant with two cards face up, giving the option of drawing face up or blind cards or one of each as preferred. Also, factories are overpowered in base rules, so we had them cost 2 credits to build which balanced them nicely as resources are tight. Play this variant!

I was tempted by this when I saw it's under £10 on gameseek (plus free delivery), but didn't take the plunge.

I'd be interested in playing it sometime for sure.

Also £9.50 delivered on Amazon. I'm increasingly tempted to pick up another copy purely for investment purposes.

5 player last night seemed to be enjoyed by all. I wouldn't quickly choose to play 5 again due to amount of tokens and down time involved and also because it led to less actions being available to players at the end of the round. I suspect 3/4 would be better in that regard, but I would play 5 again and people clearly enjoyed it.

I 'took one for the team' by dealing with a crisis in the first round. I ended up last. Scott, unsurprisingly won.

After playing last night, I can attest that this was indeed a good lot of fun - and would be a steal at £10.

It was interesting getting used to the combination of worker placement and dice combat - I imagine the presence of one or the other might turn some people off, but it made for a good balance of (un)predictability for me. I think you're right with the house rules too, it's good to be able to factor the available cards into your planning.
I can see a 3/4 player game where everyone is experienced could fly along nicely.

And don't worry, I'm sure humanity appreciated your sacrifice, even if the lesson seems to be "no good deed goes unpunished".

AndyH wrote:After playing last night, I can attest that this was indeed a good lot of fun - and would be a steal at £10.

It was interesting getting used to the combination of worker placement and dice combat - I imagine the presence of one or the other might turn some people off, but it made for a good balance of (un)predictability for me. I think you're right with the house rules too, it's good to be able to factor the available cards into your planning.
I can see a 3/4 player game where everyone is experienced could fly along nicely.

And don't worry, I'm sure humanity appreciated your sacrifice, even if the lesson seems to be "no good deed goes unpunished".

Glad you enjoyedyit Andy. For completeness I'll mention we tweaked to 3 cards face up which get wiped at end of round along with tiles.