Space Freight Preview
Review by Lincoln Hoppe: The Game Bard
Have you ever wanted to mine crystals on exotic planets, haul them through space, trading and converting those resources them while competing against other ships and crews for the biggest interstellar payday? What a coincidence. You can do all that with Space Freight!
Space Freight by Waterworks Games is a fun, tactile pickup and deliver game where you can improve and fine tune your resource -gathering engine while influencing the galactic economy.
Turns are simple You can take any two actions. You can move your ship through space. You can mine a planet for crystals. You can dock and trade at the market. You can drop off cargo to complete a mission before your opponents. You can use boost cards or crew and officer actions. And you can scavenge resources in the void of space. What more could your cube hauling heart desire?
There’s a lot to like here in this game. I’m an engine building fan, so buying those crew and officer upgrade cards feels great. You also have the option, however, to go for those single-use boost cards to improve your actions, and satisfyingly bend the rules.. Or you can do both. You are the captain of your ship, so it’s up to you.
By the way….You’ve got little ships. And those ships haul cubes. Cubes! You’ve got a cube limit based on how many Dockworker crew members you’ve got. Which can upgraded at the market.
If you don’t like the cards at the market, you can spend 1 gold to refresh the entire trade row. Which can be devastating if one of your opponents wipes the card you’ve been saving up for.
There are some great player interactions in this game. The sabatuer crew card lets you undock another player’s ship against their will. You can complete missions before them removing the mission from the game. You can manipulate the economy of the trade by incrementing or decrementing the dice that determine the galactic exchange rate. Or you can go the more mutually beneficial route and willingly swap resources with your opponents in space. Because in space, sometimes you just need a friend. That’s not how that goes.
But any friendships or alliances are short lived as It’s a race to get the most victory points in the star system. Victory points come from your cards and from the wonderful, gold-metal cubes. These are amazing. Listen. Listen! These are so great to handle and stick in your cargo hold, and deliver them to your home dock. Clinky-clink-clinking as you go. The other cubes are acrylic. But these are gold!
The game ends when all the gold cubes from the supply have been offloaded into the players bases. Which means, you could hold out a bit to buy another card with victory points, or you can push to end the game as soon as possible.
Space freight plays quickly, and at our table each player’s turn took around 5-20 seconds… with possible delays for re-strategizing or shifting goals after completing a mission. These quick turns are great, because your hands are constantly on the table moving your ship around, and loading and unloading cubes… and gold! I love the gold cubes!
I wonder if some players will be annoyed by all the physical loading and unloading of cubes into the ships. But for me, that’s part of the fun and charm of the game. You got a little ship. And you put cubes in it. This tactile element hits a special place for me. And I love it.
This game is on the light side of moderate complexity, which keeps the turns cranking and things moving, but may feel to light to heavy gamers.
This is a prototype copy, but how wrong can you go with metal cubes? And if the final production is anything like Waterworks Games previous production of Alepenglow, Space Freight is going to be fantastic.
I love the cubes. I love the ships. I love the quick turns. I love the engine building. I love the mix of minding your own space-freighting business AND messing with the other players when they deserve it.
Space freight is a quick-moving, delightfully tactile game of cubes, ships and the endless economic opportunities in the vast reaches of space. And there’s gold cubes.
Video Review Link
by Lincoln Hoppe
Original Music by Lincoln Hoppe: The Game Bard
Review copy provided by Waterworks Games
Publisher: Waterworks Games
Designed by: Tylers Cheves, Brendon Cheves
Kickstarter Page: Space Freight Kickstarter
Board Game Geek Page: Space Freight
My Board Game Geek Page: Lincoln Hoppe
Lincoln Hoppe
Lincoln a professional film & Television actor based in Los Angeles, California.
He has a family with 5 kids, and one of his joys in life is playing games together as a family.
He's on a mission to spread the love and mental health benefits of play and board gaming to the world.
Email Me
games@lincolnhoppe.com
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