Beta Colony

EvEvanstar3,5

This is a roundel driven area majorities game where at the start of the round, four dice a rolled. Each player sets their dice to match those values, then in turn order you pick a set of 2 dice. One determines how many spokes around the roundel your marker moves, the other determines the strength of the action you resolve when you get there. The actions collect resources, or spend those resources to place a tile into one of the three regions of the board. The tile comes with some number of your markers for majority scoring, then also a number of reputation steps on that region's track depending on the number printed in the tile and how many adjacent tiles of matching colors you play. The tracks have big bonuses for reaching certain levels. At the end of the game you score points according to a chart that compares your number of markers vs the player with the least markers in that area. There's also large bonus scoring cards that can be claimed by spending only wild resource markers that can be hard to come by. I enjoyed this game, and would play it again but the details of play faded in my memory rather quickly. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ☆ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ☆ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★☆☆☆ Raw enjoyment