Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/408180/shackleton-base-a-journey-to-the-moon
Playing Time: 60-120 minutes
Weight: Mid-to-Heavy
Genre: Worker Placement
Designer: Fabio Lopiano, Nestore Mangone
Players: 1-4
I’m a little leery of putting a game I’ve only played once on this list – especially one that still isn’t in wide release – but this is a game I really enjoyed and can’t wait to get some more plays on.
Shackleton Base is about a collection of space agencies working to colonize the moon. They’ll be building domed habitats on the moon’s surface, which acts as a territorial control game. They’ll also be drafting a set of workers in three colors at the start of each round, and on each turn, placing a worker. Of the places they can place workers, one of the places will be on the surface of the moon, where they can harvest resources from every habitat in a straight line – but they’ll have to pay their competitors if the largest hab in a hex they are harvesting is not their own.
On top of that, each game has 3 corporations, which adds a new minigame experience that players can leverage and new endgame goals to chase. These corporations all play wildly differently, and there are 7 of them, meaning every collection of corporations should result in a wildly different play experience. Does it, though? I dunno, but I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy and play it more to find out.
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