Toy Vault Starship Merchants

The basics: In Starship Merchants, you are the CEO of a fledgling space shipping company. At the Shipyard, you start out with one crappy ship with low energy and little cargo space. You hit the Market to upgrade your ship and hire shady pilots who grant various delivery bonuses. Then you send your ship to make runs into the Belt, mining for ore, ferrying items to various destinations. Once you arrive at the Dock, you get paid for your efforts. You invest your earnings back into your company, buy more and better ships, do more runs, and the business cycle (yes, it’s really called that) repeats. When a player hits 100k credits in earnings, the final round triggers. The player with the most credits wins.What’s good about it: This is a nifty little mid-weight economic engine-builder, with a bit of pick-up-and-deliver action. The art style has a cool retro-futuristic vibe ripped right out of 1930’s pulp sci-fi magazine covers. From the first round, you are faced with a choice that allows you to try different strategies for success: either buy your ship outright (and deplete your starting funds for upgrades), or take out a loan to afford more upgrades and pilots. Later choices include whether to expand your fleet (short answer: yes), what upgrades and pilots to equip, whether or not to buy a refinery (which grants delivery bonuses for certain ore types), what ore types to load and deliver, and whether or not to take side runs to available destinations. There’s a lot to do, build up, earn and upgrade in this game. If you play your cards right, you can experience the satisfaction of running a nice little fleet of ships, all with different upgrades and pilots, all earning you beaucoup credits per round. Although there is no direct combat in this game, you can affect your opponents by taking ore, destinations, ships, and market cards that you know they want. Once each player’s economy is up and humming, it becomes a race to 100k credits. Hey, this is serious business.What’s not so good about it: on the box it says the game lasts about 90 minutes, but our first play took 2.5 hours. Even with learning time, the game can feel like it’s overstaying its welcome just a tad. The included rules do an okay job of covering the broad strokes of gameplay, but could be clearer on some of the finer details of upgrades, pilots and ore. Fortunately, there is an official FAQ available online that explain how each of the market cards works. I would say that this is a must, and enhances the enjoyment level significantly.Why I love it, and why you should too: with a little imagination, this workable economic sim’s awesome level can get a serious upgrade. Just re-theme it in your head to take place in the Firefly ‘verse, and recast yourself as a mid-level boss doling out jobs to Mal and his crew on the Serenity. Or maybe you’re Jabba, hiring smugglers like Han and Chewie on the Falcon to do runs (Kessel?) in the Belt.Bottom line: if you want to build a fleet of starships, make runs in the Belt, and meticulously craft the most profitable economic engine this side of Antares, I recommend Starship Merchants.

More of a Resource optimization game than a pickup and deliver. Rules and game play seem less than refined and developed. This designer's flagship game, Race for the Galaxy is a terrific game. This one is forgettable.