Episode 185: Beyond the Sun

1) The Pegs discuss their recent game plays including Red Cathedral, Whistle Mountain, Castles of Tuscany and many more;

2) All the Pegs review Beyond the Sun; and

3) Look back at War of Whispers.

Join in the conversation for this episode over at our Board Game Geek guild.

Show Notes

00:01:06 – Trivia

Banter

00:04:31 – Recap our Google Hangout.

00:08:30 – put on your jolly pants and win some games!

00:12:42 – Thanksgiving stories

00:19:42 – More Escape Tales games with Penelope

00:22:18 – Brambeard Gaming and the Submersion podcast

Plays

00:27:41 – Castles of Tuscany – Ravensburger; Designer: Stefan Feld; Art: Antje Stephan, Claus Stephan;

00:40:16 – Red Cathedral – Devir Games; Designer: Isra C., Shei S.; Art: Chema Román, Pedro Soto;

00:55:20 – On Mars – Eagle-Gryphon Games; Designer: Vital Lacerda; Art: Ian O’Toole;

01:05:41 – A Word from Our Sponsor, Queen Games

01:07:31 – Whistle Mountain – Bézier Games; Designer: Scott Caputo, Luke Laurie; Art: Mila Harbar, Taylor Bogle;

01:26:08 – Parade – Z-Man Games, Inc.; Designer: Naoki Homma; Art: Philippe Guérin, Naoki Homma, Carsten Mell, Chris Quilliams, Yuka Saitoh;

01:36:55 – Candy Lab – Funnyfox; Designer: Thomas Danede; Art: Alain Boyer;

News

01:43:00 – Snallygaster Situation

01:45:23 – The Scrappening legacy expansion for Wasteland Express Delivery Service

01:49:33 – Poop. Dice.

01:54:10 – Bone. Dice.

01:59:00 – A Word from Our Sponsor, Grand Gamers Guild

REVIEW: Beyond the Sun

02:00:05 – Rules Breakdown

Beyond the Sun is a 1 to 4 player action selection title designed by Dennis K. Chan with art by Franz Vohwinkel and published by Rio Grande Games.  In it, players will colonize extraterrestrial worlds while collectively building a tech tree which will open up new action spaces as the game progresses.

At the start of the game, players will choose one of four available player boards, either the Basic or the Advanced version depending on their familiarity with the game.  Player boards provide some asymmetrical player powers as well as some slightly variable production paths for workers and resources for each player.  Workers in this case are dice, with one face of the die showing a scientist figure, and four other faces showing a spaceship icon of strength 1 through 4.  The sixth face of the die is a crate, which is what all die are turned to when they are seeded to the player’s board.

The space board is placed next to the main board, and then main board is seeded with event cards throughout the tech tree, and the space board is seeded with initial systems.  In addition, two standard achievement cards and two other random achievement cards are displayed, indicating how the game will eventually end.

On a player’s turn, they will place their action pawn on an available action space and immediately take that action.  Actions will generally allow a player to collect additional ore, unlock a worker from their player board, launch or upgrade a spaceship, or colonize a world – though the costs, benefits, and specific way actions are carried out are highly variable depending on exactly how the tech tree has been developed and actions revealed.

Certain actions will allow players to advance along the tech tree by assigning a die to an action space on the same or subsequent tier.  To be eligible to learn a new technology, a player must have workers on any technology that can trace a path to that technology – paths being represented by circuit-board like lines connecting some spaces of a previous tier to one or more spaces of the next tier or tiers.  The first player to discover a new technology will first resolve the event card placed on that space at the beginning of the game.  Then, they will decide what new action card is placed in that space by drawing two cards from the appropriate deck.  Each action card has two prerequisites indicated by various colored arrows on the bottom of the card – the prerequisite colors must match one of the previous technologies in the tree that can trace a path to it.  As a result, when placed, the new action card will influence what later technologies can be connected to it.

In addition to developing the tech tree, players will attempt to control and colonize planets.  This is done primarily through moving ships of sufficient strength to meet the threshold for the planet and beat out other players on the same world.  The actions that allow players to upgrade and move ships, and eventually colonize worlds, will be revealed as the technology tree is developed.

Finally, players will manage their production through several tracks on their player boards.  At the beginning of the game, all of the spaces in these two tracks are covered by discs.  These discs will be removed as players gain temporary control over planets, eventually colonize them, or take certain actions to automate their production, which moves a disc permanently to a scoring track on the top of their board.

Play continues until four victory discs of any combination of players have been placed on any combination of spaces on the displayed achievement cards.  The round will finish out, one more turn is taken by all players, and then final scores are tallied.  Players will score points from a number of areas – technologies achieved, systems colonized, achievements met, events, certain end-game scoring and private techs, and area control on the system board.  The player with the highest score wins.

02:04:11 – Review

02:33:35 – Ratings

ReRoll

02:42:44 – War of Whispers – Starling Games; Designer: Jeremy Stoltzfus; Art: Tomasz Jedruszek, Dann May;

Check out our original review for War of Whispers during Episode 160.

Gameplay Photos

* Disclosure: These titles were received free of charge by the publishers or distributors. If you are interested in submitting a title for review, please read our Review Policy.