TINY EPIC GALAXIES (2015)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	PUBLISHER
1-5	30-45 mins	Scott Almes	Gamelyn Games

In this 1-5 player space exploration game, players will be rolling dice to choose actions and expand their influence across the galaxy.

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Despite being nearly a decade old, Galaxies remains one of the best in the long running Tiny Epic series. For starters, it’s less bloated than the more recent entries; both in game mechanics and the amount of stuff packed inside the box.

Each turn. the active player rolls some dice and then uses the results to carry out a bunch of actions.

This ranges from moving your ships between the planet cards to acquiring resources to colonising.

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Something great that this game has is the follow mechanic. On another player’s turn you can use a Culture (one of the two resources) to ‘follow’ an action.

This is great for keeping the players engaged on each and every turn. And it might allow you to do something that you weren’t able to on your own previous turn because the dice said “no”.

It also makes the active player think a little more carefully and scout if rival players are able to pay the cost before doing something.

Each player’s Galaxy card displays their Empire which gives limitations on certain things. But as players upgrade these throughout the game, they will start to gain more dice and more ships. as well as scoring better at game end.

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As I said, Galaxies is a little more basic than other Tiny Epic games that have come out since. It works well as a Gateway, both to the series and to gaming.

It also scales pretty well across its player counts, with just extra planets being added the more that people take part.

There is a newer version of the game which looks to sort the issue of the Galaxy cards being a little cramped and prone to being knocked.

And if the game is too basic, there is more depth with the ‘Beyond The Black’ expansion.

TINY EPIC GALAXIES shows its age a little, but it isn’t broken. It remains on peoples Tiny Epic Top 5 for a reason. It just works.