Board Gaming - Clank! In! Space!

Firstly, sorry that this is a day late. I went out for a walk with my sister and it was a bit tougher on me than I expected and wiped out the rest of Friday. Now, back to the gaming.

Clank! In! Space!

This is the first major change to the Clank! after the Sunken Treasures expansion changed the board but no other changes to the mechanics (from memory anyway). In Clank! In! Space! we're no longer raiding a dragon's dungeon to steal his treasures, but are rushing through a spaceship to steal artefacts from the space conqueror Lord Eradikus.

^{Our setup is done. The Clank and Life track boards at the 'back' of the ship, and the evil lord's track at the 'front'}

A change comes to the game play in that the board is made up of a few jigsaw pieces that can be mixed and matched to make a few different arrangements with some being easier to get through than others. This doesn't really make too much difference to the game play, but will certainly make for variation with future plays not being in the same map.

A more significant change to how things play is that there is the requirement to place 2 hacking cubes in 2 separate sections of the ship to allow you into the final area where all the artefacts are, making it another required task to do and meaning you have to visit at least 2 of the sections before getting to them.

^{You still draw 5 cards, play them and gain the benefit of each card. Here I have 4 purchase, 1 movement, and 3 fighting ability}

Another change is shown above in the Nibbling Beast card, which is factions. There are 3 of them that are introduced in this game, and they trigger additional benefits on other cards. In the case of the Nibbling Beast, if I played a second card of the purple faction, I'd gain 2 fighting from the beast (and the beast would trigger any additional benefit on the other card too). I quite successfully purchased from the purple faction and regularly was using these additional benefits. I think there are 8 of them in the big column in the image below.

^{At the end of the game you count up points, which many of the cards have on them, so it's easy to spread your deck into it's components.}

There are also different treasures, one of which allows you to use some teleportation locations to get around the ship quicker. Another method to speed up travel is a fast movement rail in the middle of the ship that can move you about quite quickly, but while this initially seemed like it would be very important, it was really only important for a more efficient escape path if you didn't get the teleportation item. Movement along it didn't count as a square, so you spend one movement to get on it and you get off at one of the 4 locations and step into the room it connects to as part of that movement point. At the end of the game, the furthest to the back stop is closed though, meaning you'd have to go around still to get into the 'safe' section of the ship.

^{On the rush back. It was actually more beneficial for me to just get off the express path at the first stop instead of the second so I'd collect a couple more items on the way, after my opponent had teleported most of the way home.}

It is a very good new version of what was already a good game. It's kept all the core components of Clank!, and added to it things that modify the theme and maintain the enjoyment of the game. Being that it's still quite similar, it's quite likely that if you like Clank!, you will like it in space, but if you don't like Clank!, then it's questionable if this will change your mind on that as it's still the same game at the core of it.

Last 10 Board Gaming Posts

10 Minute Heist
Santa Maria
Transatlantic
Viticulture
Grog Island
Hive
Balloon Cup
7 Wonders
Timeline: Diversity
Betrayal at Baldur's Gate

^{Upgoats made by the talented @ryivhnn}