There are 40 unique cards in the deck. You draw 7 at the beginning of the game—and that’s it. The rest goes back in the box. Those 7 are your hand for the entire game. And because each card is multi-use, you’re suddenly staring the game with 21 possible decisions. Neat.

3 of these cards will form your Galactic Alliance. 1 card will be your Ideology—that’s your end-game scoring bonus. And the remaining three? Like in Imperial Settlers, you just raze them. Grab resources and toss the card. Again, neat.

So now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room—Age of Galaxy has a generic name like hundreds of other SF games. Has a standard, weird-looking alien art on the cards that we already’ve seen hundreds of times. And has a cover that kind of whispers “Star Trek,” but doesn’t exactly whisper “You must have it”

You’ve got a dozen games like this on your shelf already.

So… why would you care?

You would care because you love card games. You would care because the edge is not in the cover. It is in the cards.

It’s in that hand of 7.

It’s in the thrill of planning a galaxy-shaking combo and executing it one turn at a time.

It’s in watching your friends pull off their own powerful alliances.

If you’re into card games, you already know—the magic is in the multi-use cards. In the decisions which cards to Raze, and which turn into 3 card alliance. In the way, those 7 cards give crazy synergies.

You smile.

You know.

Forget the generic title. Ignore the vanilla setting.

You’re ready for one more awesome card game in your life. You know the edge is right there in your hand of seven starting cards.

***

You can learn more about Age of Galaxy HERE.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a silly essay about a subscription model in the board games industry. The basic premise was that players would get the game for free, and then the designer would be paid 1 cent each time they played the game. That was a thought experiment, and I had fun writing it. It was silly, but fun.

And then the 21st century hit me in the head. Because this week I got my paycheck, and it was all about subscription and board gaming. So yeah, I have a follow-up to my silly story!

I was aware of Board Game Arena for years, but did not pay much attention to it, to be honest. I knew it existed, but I was focused on Portal Games apps in the App Store and Google Play. I was excited about our games debuting on Steam and Switch, and BGA was always less important to me.

Things might change soon, though.

During the summer, we held a competition for the best fan-made army for Neuroshima Hex, followed by an intense debate in the company in September about which army was the most interesting and deserved to be released for the 20th anniversary of Neuroshima Hex. A few weeks later, we had the top five armies left, then three, then two, until we finally selected the best one—Piotr Lubecki’s Wiremen. November was filled with intense testing, December with even more testing, and January was the same. Then, in February, the team was still deeply engaged in balancing the new army.

And to be clear, by “team,” I mean a dedicated group of Neuroshima Hex testers, many of whom are tournament winners and former Polish Champions, whom we’ve recruited into the development team over the years.