Parsec – Age Of Colonies – Kickstarter

Usually space themed board games are very complex, hard to learn and take too long to finish a single play, but Parsec – Age Of Colonies promises to change that with a more dynamic game play and trading capabilities.

Parsec is a board game for 2 to 6 players where you have to manage resources, have combats that are decided with cards and dices and the above mentioned trading.

The idea of the creators is to bring a more simplistic interface that do not interfere in the game and in this, I believe they got it right. Take a look at the board game on the right side.

Accordingly to the Kickstarter page, Parsec is “easy to learn and hard to master” and looking at the board, I believe that there’re so many moves you can make that it’s virtually impossible to have the same experience twice, which incredibly adds to the replay value of the game.

One thing that negatively surprised me is that you actually have 3 different sets of the game, each one adding 2 more players. This means that to be able to play a game of 4 players, you have to buy 2 sets and if you want to play in a group of 6, you need the 3 sets. The board is huge when playing with the 3 sets, but it’s also expensive to achieve that. Apart from that, it’s an interesting way to make the game more viable and the experience just right for the amount of people you want to play with. There are also plans to release another expansion to enable 8 players in the same game. It’s huge!

The second thing that I missed was the stretch goals. Usually they’re what make people more engaged in the project and not having it is a bit disappointing.

The board game details are very nice, even with the simplistic approach for the board. It works very well with the hexagons that mark player positions and the player markers that stand from the dark colour of the board.

The game comes with the following components:

• 46 colored pawns for each player
• 2 dices
• 4 event counters
• 6 table modules
• 35 Event cards
• 60 Resource cards
• 4 Faction cards.

In this 13+ board game, you will win if you destroy all enemy fleets, control the galaxy’s economic system or colonising most of the planets.

What I like about this game is that you have to find the right balance for your strategy, attacking and managing resources. Everything other players do, impacts on what you are trying to achieve, giving it a nice change of power during each turn.

Parsec – Age of Colonies – Kickstarter Details

The Kickstarter will finish on 31st of May 2016 and has a goal of €18,000. At the moment, it has about €2,500, but with 47 days to go, they’ll be able to collect much more.

The minimum pledge for the 1st set (2 players) is €45, 1st + 2nd sets (4 players) is €70 and 1st + 2nd + 3rd sets is €95.

In case the Kickstarter project is backed, it starts shipping in December 2016.

Take a look at the Kickstarter page here.

[distance1]

[alert type=”info” close=”false”]Regarding my concerns about it having 3 different sets, here’s the answer from the creators of the game:

We decided to split the game in 3 boxes for two main reasons:

1. A mono box would have a price of around €100 and we tought (along with the publishers) that it’s a bit too much.
2. There are very few games for two players, and even less are scifi themed.[/alert]