Star Charter – Games 5 to 8

A continuation of my Star Charter campaign; Game 1 & Games 2 to 4.

Game 5

Star Charter - Game 5 Map
Star Charter - Game 5 Cards

The early deck, containing 2 worlds in each sector, aids in stringing together a longer journey. The ability to discard any extra 0 cost worlds allows you to draw more cards, and I created my first 6 fuel card at the end of this game. (43. Hydarnes is also an Urbanised Mafia planet with Cruel Ships, which is quite evocative.) My exploration of the middle ring means I am creating a lot of hub worlds, and making space lanes, which halves my fuel cost. 3 fuel (instead of 6) to go from Medama to Álvaro, and 6 fuel (instead of 12) to from Álvaro to Hydarnes.

I also used up the last 2 blanks in the deck, which also helped with drawing more cards to my hand after a turn. I will no longer get this benefit, because I have a 21 card deck, with 21 worlds. From this point on, I will grab a new blank card from outside the game with each new world I create. And my deck will be continuously increasing in size.

Game 6

Star Charter - Game 6 Map
Star Charter - Game 6 Cards

Game 6 is my first recorded fail as I only created 2 new worlds this game. Looking at it now; my last turn created a new hub world, and I could create a new space lane, I would only need 6 fuel to travel to 43. or 42. to create a new world there. It’s certainly possible I had that fuel, but might have passed because I didn’t have 12 fuel in hand, which is the normal fuel cost. What ever the case, I didn’t make a third world, and my deck has 23 cards in it.

I’ll also mention here that each of these games takes 15 minutes to play. It’s super quick to explore the galaxy, find and create a world, so a mistake here could have been because I was rushing a bit, and had no problems resetting to start a new game.

Game 7

Star Charter - Game 7 Map
Star Charter - Game 7 Cards

This is a quick game, showing how a bad decision can make you end things quickly. I go from 22. to 11. and then decide to double back on myself in the middle ring. I have now locked myself into creating 3 new worlds, because there are no previous worlds I can travel to from those sectors. If I had gone into 65. and continued anti-clockwise, I might have drawn worlds in sectors that I could have traveled, lengthening my journey, and generating more fuel. You live and you learn.

Game 8

Star Charter - Game 8 Map
Star Charter - Game 8 Cards 1
Star Charter - Game 8 Cards 2

Game 8 was a good one. I drew lots of good cards, and got a run up to 3 new worlds with lots of fuel, include our new high mark of 7. I now have a deck of 29 cards.

Going forward, I won’t log every play (I currently have 33 in this first campaign), but just those that illustrate something new about the game play. I think the basics have very much been explained through 8 games.

This is a post (tangentially) about the design and development of a currently unnamed Shipwreck Game. You can see the other Blog posts at the Index for the Game.

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