Book Review: Serenity Vol. 3: The Shepherd's Tale by Joss Whedon et al.

Serenity Vol. 3: The Shepherd's Tale story by Joss and Zack Whedon, art by Chris Samnee

Joss and Zack Whedon pen this tale of Shepherd Book from the Serenity/Firefly storyline. His past has been very mysterious and this book reveals a great deal of his background. Why is he so violent? How did he become a Shepherd, a sort of preacher or wandering holy man? Why do so many people fear him? Unlike Clint Eastwood's character in Pale Rider, Shepherd Book is an authentic holy man seeking to spread a message of peace. Book doesn't ride into town just to avenge wrongs. He's a fascinating character who comes to use violence only sparingly and highly effectively. But that is the end of his story, not the beginning.

The story is told in reverse order, like the movie Memento, though the episodes are of varying time lengths (though each is told in six to eight pages). As a character study it is fascinating and the story is accessible as a stand-alone story (i.e., if you have no knowledge of the movie Serenity or the TV series Firefly, you will still be able to follow and enjoy the story).

Easily the best of the Serenity graphic novels.

Game Review: Firefly the Board Game by Gale Force Nine

Firefly the Board Game published by Gale Force Nine

The Firefly television show was tragically canceled in the midst of its first season. It's enduring popularity is due to the overall quality of the show and the great blend of various ideas (it's a science fiction show with a storyline reminiscent of a western set after the American Civil War; American and Chinese cultures are heavily blended in this future). The show has lived on in comics, a movie, and several board games. The first Firefly boardgame (and maybe the best) is Firefly the Board Game.

The 'Verse

Players start the game with a Firefly-class ship, an engine, $3000, and a captain of their choosing (the captain deck includes Malcolm Reynolds among other minor characters from the show). A scenario is chosen (e.g. the beginning scenario has players earning enough money to pay for their ship and going to a certain planet with that money). Then they place their ships on the board and draw one mission from each of the various employers (Niska, Badger, Patience, Harken, Ammon Duul), keeping three of the mission cards. Then regular play starts as the captains recruit crew members, buy equipment and ship upgrades, work on missions, and get new missions from the employers. All the while they also need to dodge the Reavers and, if they are outlaws (they have warrants or contraband or fugitives), avoid the Alliance ship.

Captains (and the cool back of the card)

The crew members can be just about any named character from the show along with some generic Mechanics, Soldiers, Medics, Companions, etc. They cost a certain amount to recruit which is also the cut they get from the profits whenever a mission is completed. They have skills (represented by skills icons for Persuasion, Fighting, and Mechanical abilities), sometimes special abilities (like getting extra money or supplies from certain types of missions), and sometimes some flavor text, though often the special skill is related to their character.

Characters

Players can buy upgrades to their ships, which are different types of engines, more cargo space, or special equipment, like a Cry Baby that helps dodge the Alliance or a Medical Bay which gives killed crew member a chance not to die. They can also buy equipment, like weapons, tech, and even fancy duds (like Kaylee's pink dress or a shiny neck tie) to help with skills checks when completing missions.

Equipment

Upgrades to your Firefly

The missions are two basic types: pick up and deliver between two planets (mostly shipping cargo or people) or performing some (usually illegal) activity at one planet. A player does the illegal activity by resolving a certain number (usually one to three) of Misbehave cards, which require the player's captain and crew to get by a skills check.  Players have to add up how many symbols of a certain type their crew and their equipment has and add that to a die role to see if they pass the check. If the number isn't high enough, dire consequences!

Various missions

Misbehave Cards (and the cool back of the card)

The game captures the feel of the show quite well. The components are high quality (even the fake cash!) and the art and photos are drawn from the show. The missions fit the character of the employers and completing them is satisfying. The big challenge with the game is the slow ramp-up. Starting with just a captain and a ship means players have to spend the first part of the game on collecting resources to complete missions or avoid hazards like the Reavers. It makes the game longer, usually over two hours. But once things get going, the game is exciting and enjoyable.

Set-up for a solo game

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE APPROPRIATENESS: The game has a lot of stuff in it, making it heavy to carry around. Also, it needs a lot of set-up space which may not be an option if you are wandering through a blasted post-apocalyptic wasteland. If you are hunkered down in a bunker or super-secure gated community, you probably will have the space and the time to enjoy this game. And there are solo missions, so you can play by yourself.

Game Review: Firefly Shiny Dice by Upper Deck

Firefly Shiny Dice by Upper Deck

In Firefly Shiny Dice, each player gets three turns controlling the crew of the Serenity. The outlaws are represented by seven brown dice (since they are Browncoats, after all) and the passengers by thee white dice. Each die face represents a different character or a piece of cargo, so rolling them all generates a random assortment often with duplicates. When rolling, the player also has to roll five black dice that represent the Foes (Niska, Saffron, and Badger).

The dice

After dice are rolled, characters are placed on a game mat (which is printed on a mouse pad, so it is very durable and flexible) in the proper locations. Some dice (River and Wash) let the player re-roll other dice, which can be helpful if the initial roll is unlucky. Then the dice are locked in place and any bonuses are applied (if there are four different outlaws, the player can remove one Foe die from the board; if there are four of one enemy, each other player loses 100 points; if there are five of one Foe, the other players get the penalty and the player's turn immediately ends).

The playing mat (probably gonna use that Wash die to re-roll one of those Jayne dice)

The active player then draws a mission card, which requires certain dice to be on the board. If they are on the board, the mission is completed and a special bonus on the card takes effect. Missions also have a key word at the bottom that add an additional effect.

Mission cards

Finally, it's time for action. If the mission was a "Shiny" mission, the player deals one damage to a Foe of their choice (i.e. one die is removed). If the mission is completed, the player gets the card bonus and can discard another Foe die from the board. Then the Foes strike. If there are any Niska dice, one crew die is moved to the KO section of the board (he killed someone!). For each Saffron die, one crew member is moved to the Cargo Hold on the board (she locked them up!). For each Badger die, one supply die is moved out of the Storage area and placed next to each Badger die (he stole them!).

Now the player decides what to do with the remaining crew members. Each character can do separate, thematic actions. Zoe deals two damage to any Foes (i.e. she lets the player remove two Foe dice of their choice). Kaylee deals one damage to any foe and moves one die from the KO pile to the Cargo Hold. Simon moves one Kaylee die from the KO pile back into the Serenity. The player tries to knock out all the Foes and complete the mission card. For each Foe completely removed, the player gets 100 points in a temporary pool. If all the foes are knocked out, the player scores any supplies in the hold and has to decide to Lay Low or Keep Flyin'.

Game in action

If the player decides to Lay Low, he keeps all his temporary victory points, puts them behind a screen, and passes the dice to the next player. If the player decides to Keep Flyin', any dice in the KO area are passed to the next player and the active player re-rolls all the remaining dice (including the five Foe dice) and does another round of possibly re-rolling, drawing a mission card, taking the Foes' damage, and using the remaining crew to knock out the Foes.

Each player gets three turns. At the end, everyone counts their victory points (supplies are worth 50 points each). Whoever has the most points wins.

The game is very thematic. Each character does something that they would on the show and their symbols on the dice match them nicely (Wash has a dinosaur, Jayne has his hat). The dice are high quality and the other components are well made. The player screens have a summary of the turns and the effects of each die face, making them a great player aid in addition to hiding how much they have scored so far.

On the other hand, the game is very complicated, and too complicated for a press-your-luck style game. The mission cards are a little confusing, especially with the mission types. If the Bushwhacked mission is not completed, the player is forced to Lay Low. If the Gorram mission is completed, the player is forced to Keep Flyin' (if they even knock out all foes). If the Escape mission is completed, the player can end their turn and take their points before knocking out Foes but they don't have to. It's a bit hard to keep everything straight. The character powers work nicely but analysis paralysis can set in when calculating an optimal move. The Keep Flyin' option happens at best two times since the active player is always losing dice, because knocking out five bad guy dice gets much harder.

The other problem is that each person plays their turn solitaire, leaving the other players nothing to do. With two players it isn't so bad but a five player game is very long. I haven't had one where we played all three rounds just because of time constraints. Also, the game has no build up between rounds, making it feel like the same thing again and again. Maybe if there were a rule that let players buy dice back from the KO pile, it might make the game more interesting. But it would also make it longer, so I don't know. The box says the game plays in thirty minutes, but that must mean per player when the players are experienced enough to remember all the minutia of the rules. I think the game is better as a solitaire experience where one player tries to get the best score he can.

Zombie Apocalypse Appropriateness: The game components are fairly compact and very sturdy, so they would be easy to carry around and would last a long time. Also, I think the game is more fun as a solitaire experience, which fits well in a zombie apocalypse. And it brings back happy memories of the TV show and movie, so there's that. Once the power is out, it's a good way to relive the show.

Gen Con 2015 Firefly Games I Tried

So as not to delay the games portion of my Gen Con report, here is the first sampling of games I played, namely those based on the TV show Firefly.

Firefly: Out of the Black is an interesting card-based co-operative game where players take on the roles of Serenity's crew (but not the entire crew). The players work together to complete jobs that have Fightin', Flyin', and Thinkin' checks. Different crew members have different levels of each--Wash scores high in Flyin', Jane scores high in Fightin' but not Thinkin', etc. Players boost their characters' attributes with cards from their hand, but can't tell what they are boosting. One player may boost the Flyin' enough and then another player may put it over the top, which can turn out okay because complications ensue when a card is played from the Gorram deck. We players found it frustrating because the intelligence checks were hard to clear, even if we had chosen the smarter crew members. The game is too tough to be fun. We talked about how the crew usually did poorly on their missions which makes for entertaining story telling but not so much for entertaining game play.

Firefly: Out of the Black game

Firefly: Fistful of Credits is a fun, fast dungeon-crawl type game that sees the crew boarding a derelict space ship to find money and disable some traps. The derelict was abandoned because of a Reaver attack and some Reavers are still on board. Actually, a lot of Reavers are still on board. Each player chooses one character as their main character and another as a side kick. Each has a special power, though the side-kick version of a person isn't as good as their main-character version. The main character wanders through the ship finding stuff and fighting Reavers with the side kick's help. We enjoyed playing it even if we didn't win because it was thematic and fun, not frustrating. We came pretty close to winning.

Firefly: Fistful of Credits

My characters

Fire Fly Tall Card is a mixture of poker and mahjongg. The cards have three suits (plum, bamboo, diamond) and three types of dragons (white, green, red). Players are dealt a hand of five cards and have a chance to get the "Tall Card" which will make a suit into a trump suit or a dragon into a wild card. After the Tall Card is taken (if nobody takes it the dealer has to), a round of betting happens. Then players get new cards (though whoever has the Tall Card can only get one new card). The list of winning hands is long and complicated since dragons are worth more than the other cards. Even people familiar with poker had a hard time assessing which hands were better. If you get used to it, I suppose it's a fun game but it has a steep learning curve. I'd rather just play poker.

Firefly Tall Card in play

The box

Firefly Shiny Dice Game is a dice game (duh!) where each player has three turns to earn as much money as they can. At first, the player rolls fifteen dice, a mixture of villains, Firefly crew, and supplies. After sorting the dice, the crew has to fight the villains and complete a mission to keep flying. Players spend their crew to remove the villains. Spent crew are knocked out and not re-rollable for the next round. If the player fails to make it to the end of the round, any cash gained by eliminating the villains is lost. If they player succeeds, they get to keep supplies and have the option to try again with fewer dice (i.e. the knocked out crew dice aren't used but all the villains come back) or to lay low and collect the cash from eliminating villains. The game is a little fiddly. Each mission is in a category (Shiny, Gorram, Sabotage, etc.) and we had to keep referring back to the rules for the special circumstances that apply to each. The game has great components, feels very thematic, and is a lot of fun. I played again on Sunday in a "Play to Win" event where the person who came in first received a copy of the game. I did come in first and got to take the game home! The game doesn't come out for a couple of months, so I may do a more substantial review soon.

The copy of Shiny Dice I won!

Fistful of Credits is not on Amazon--buy it here.



Shiny Dice is not available on Amazon yet, but can be pre-ordered here. Expected release date is November 2015.

Book Review: Serenity Vol. 4: Leaves on the Wind by Zack Whedon et al.

Serenity Volume 4: Leaves on the Wind written by Zack Whedon, art by Georges Jeanty, Karl Story, and Laura Martin

Leaves on the Wind picks up the story of Serenity's crew after the events of the movie (so if you haven't seen the movie, don't keep reading because there are spoilers aplenty ahead). Captain Mal is on the run from the Alliance who are upset about the revelations about the Reavers. That revelation has started up a new resistance movement that wants Malcolm Reynolds to lead them. Various groups are searching for Serenity. To complicate matters, Zoe is pregnant and has complications after birth that require more than ship's doctor Simon can handle. They get her to a hospital ship but not before they are discovered and Zoe is left a captive of the Alliance. Mal wants to get her back, which opens a whole other set of problems for the crew.

The story is interesting enough but wasn't entirely satisfying to me. The dialogue wasn't up to the Whedon standard for snappiness. I really disliked Wash's death in the movie and have only grown to loathe it more on subsequent viewings. This story reopened that wound. The Alliance has turned into an "over the top" villain with no nuance or sympathy. Usually Whedon villains have more character or believability. The story started out strong but floundered.

So far the only really good comic book story of Serenity has been The Shepherd's Tale. I always hope for more stuff like that.

Book Review: Serenity Vol. 1: Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon et al.

Serenity Volume 1: Those Left Behind written by Joss Whedon, script by Brett Matthews, art by Will Conrad

Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the crew of the Serenity run a couple of missions and they run into the typical problems: they're not getting paid, Inara wants to leave, the Alliance and other old foes are on their tails. The story starts in a promising way and then comes to a rather abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion. The last two pages read like a set-up for the movie Serenity and unfortunately the whole book feels like a movie tie-in product, not a well-thought out story. Very disappointing.

UK Games Expo 2014--Games I Tried

Here's a not so exhaustive list of games that I played at the UK Games Expo 2014, in roughly chronological order (if my memory serves):

1. Memoir '44 El Alamein Overlord edition (part of the Mediterranean Theater expansion)--one of the first things I saw when I arrived at the Expo on Friday (which is a games only day, i.e. no trade shows or seminars) was a massive map of Memoir '44. It had Allied troops in tan and Axis in grey fighting the battle of El Alamein. Two guys were running their respective sides of the board and letting people come up and command one of the wings of the battle. At most, each side could have four players--three assigned to the left, middle, and right parts of the board and one overall commander giving cards to those three. I played as the right flank of the Axis for about 45 minutes. Playing in that format with the gigantic board (it was a printout on poster paper, very impressive looking) was a lot of fun even if I wasn't doing too well.

Memoir '44 El Alamein Overlord map, seen from the Axis side

2. London--In this game  designed by Martin Wallace, players rebuild the city of London after the Great Fire of 1666. The games goes to the end of the 19th century, though it certainly doesn't feel that long. Players draw and play cards to develop buildings in the city. Buildings can be activated to get special bonuses but poverty might also increase. Players can also purchase boroughs of the city to get victory points and protect themselves against poverty. In the final parts of the game, players can build the Underground. The game requires a balancing act between going into debt, developing and replacing buildings, and investing in the boroughs of the city. I enjoyed the game but it didn't wow me as a must buy.

3. Mauna Kea--Groups of explorers on an island have to bring some relics/treasures/artifacts (they are little wooden cubes, okay?) to the boats on the shore to escape before the volcano's lava makes them permanent residents. The island is made of tiles but only a few of them (the center of the island and the ones with the treasures) are in place. Each tile is a two-by-two grid with jungle, water, or mountains in each of the four spots. The jungles require one movement point to go through, the water two movement points, and the mountains are impassible. Players take turns drawing tiles which are used either to build the island (thus creating escape routes for your explorers or blocking the escape of other players' explorers) or to move your explorers (each tile has a certain number of movement points on it). When the players draw new tiles, sometimes they draw lava tiles, which are placed over the existing tiles and may block or even kill explorers. The game is tense and enjoyable. In our first play, almost no explorers made it off the island! We immediately played a second time with the advanced rules, which include cards that give special victory conditions (get off the island with so many white or grey cubes for a bonus) or special powers (move through contiguous jungle, water, or even mountains for one movement point!). I liked the game so much, I bought it!

4. One Night Ultimate Werewolf--Listening to podcasts about gaming, I often hear about Werewolf, a popular, large-group game where most people are villagers but a few are werewolves. The werewolves try to kill off the villagers before they themselves are killed. Each turn, all the players vote on a person to be killed after they spend a certain amount of time discussing who might be the werewolf. Play proceeds until there are no werewolves or no villagers left. In this One Night version, cards with various roles are handed out to the group with three extra cards put in the middle of the table. Many of the villagers are given specific tasks, e.g. the Troublemaker, who switches cards between two other players without looking at the cards, or the Drunk, who switches his card with one of the cards in the middle without looking at it. After players have their cards, look at them, and place them on the table in front of them, they all close their eyes. The fellow running this game had an app that would prompt the players to do their roles. Thus the app would say, "Everyone, close your eyes...werewolves, open your eyes. If there is only one werewolf, that player may look at someone's card...werewolves, close your eyes...Troublemaker, open your eyes. Switch cards between two players without looking at them...Troublemaker, close your eyes..." and so on. The game is fun because the group is only given a few minutes to discuss what happened while everyone was asleep. Maybe people won't be honest about their roles or what they did. When time is up, everyone points a finger at who they think is a werewolf. That person is killed. If that player is a werewolf, the villagers win; if he is not, the werewolves win. The only drawbacks to this game are (1) you need a fairly big group (at least six players) and (2) if you don't have the app, someone has to read the script out without looking at the other players doing their moves. Otherwise it's an interesting exercise in bluffing and reading other people.

5. Dodekka--Players draw cards from the table or a draw deck. The cards are colored with various numbers on them. Each color represents an element and players want to accumulate as many cards of one color as they can, though often they have to draw some color they don't want or plan on needing. When the cards run out, each player chooses a color as their victory color. They add up the numbers on the cards of the chosen color and then subtract the total number of cards (not the numbers on the cards) they have in other color. It's pretty simple--J understood it, L just barely. We played a quick game on Saturday morning before trying other things.

L and J playing Dodekka

6. Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice--Two players battle it out in a Mexican wrestling match. Players role their dice (blue for one side, red for the other) simultaneously on a board. Any dice that go off the board don't count (which means a player could throw their dice in the hope of knocking the other player's dice out!). The dice have symbols for Hit, Miss, Block, Block with counter, or Pin. Misses are discarded. Blocks remove Hits from the other player's dice. Blocks with counter remove Hits and count as Hit dice. After the dice are reconciled, a special green Hit die is rolled for each hit to determine how much damage is done. Two Hit dice can be combined to role the black Luchador die with the probability of higher damage or possibility of an injury to the rolling player. At the end of the round, a player with a Pin will role the yellow Pin die to determine if a pin happens, or maybe a stun (which subtracts a die from the other player in the next round), or maybe the player just shows off to get a strength point back. The pinned player has a chance to break the pin. Each player starts with 21 Strength points. The first one to run out of Strength points or to be pinned successfully loses. Alternate rules let four players have a tag-team match. I played this against the game's designer and won! He congratulated me and I bought a copy. I'm sure the kids will enjoy it.

7. Rampage--This dexterity game is based on the classic arcade game of giant monsters running around destroying various cities. Here, buildings are constructed using meeples to hold up the various levels. Some vehicles are placed on the board as well. Each player picks a monster and draws three cards from three separate decks. One card is a special power to be used once per turn (I had "Long Tongue" which let me eat meeples in other sections of the city), another is a special power used once per game (I had "Hungry" which let me eat twice as many meeples one time), and the third gives some special victory condition (I had "Romantic Monster" which gave me extra points for every set of red and yellow meeples (hero and lady colors) I had at the end of the game). Players then take turns destroying buildings and eating meeples. Players move around the board by flicking a small round token in the direction they want to go, which isn't as easy as it looks. If they are by a building, they can taken their wooden monster and drop him on the building from about a foot above the table. Another option for players is to put their chin on top of their monster and try to blow down buildings or meeples. If the player is in a district with a vehicle, he can put the vehicle on his monster's head and flick the vehicle at a building or another monster. The advantage of hitting another monster is knocking out one of the monster's teeth, which counts as victory points for whoever knocked it out. The game is fun but pretty light and definitely takes up a lot of table space. I enjoyed playing it but am not too sure it has a lot of replays in it.

The end of that city (and our game)

8. Sopio--A simple card game where players try to get to 1000 points. Each card has a line drawing with a title and a value or with a special rule. For example, one card is the Gingerbread House worth 200 points. Some cards are worth negative points and can be played on others, like the Taylor Swifted card for -200 points. Players have a hand of five cards and on their turn play a card and draw a replacement. The game goes quickly and is entertaining enough but the simple drawings looked a little too simple to me, as if they were home-made rather than hand-crafted.

9. Ivor the Engine--Based on a classic British children's show from the 1970s, players are train cars that go around the "top left-hand corner of Wales" collecting stray sheep and performing missions at various locations. Missions are found on cards that players can select from four on display. The cards require the player to be in a certain location which has no stray sheep in it. I've never seen the show but I still enjoyed the game. Finding locations on the board were a little tough as was figuring out routes between locations might take a little time. Fun but not great.

Ivor the Engine game

10. Relic Runner--Players are explorers in a jungle excavating ancient temples and other ruins. Each level of the temples or the ruins (all have three levels) give some sort of bonus in resources, victory points, or special abilities. When fully excavated, a relic is put in place of the temple or ruin. Players collect the relics when they develop routes in the jungle that let them go from one relic to a matching relic in one turn. The game ends when eight relics are collected. The components are great and the play is smooth but not very deep. The parts are better than the whole in this game!

11. Mystery of the Abbey--Players are monks visiting an abbey where one of the monks has died. One of the other local monks is the killer! A deck of 24 cards with monks on them is shuffled. One card is placed under the board (he's the guilty party), some cards are dealt to the players, and remaining cards are put in a special draw pile. Players wander around the abbey gathering clues to figure out which of the 24 monks is guilty. Part of the game is asking other players questions about the cards they have. A questioned player has to answer truthfully but may respect his vow of silence and say nothing. If he answers, he gets to ask a question of the questioner. This game is basically Cluedo/Clue on steroids, so if you want a more challenging version of the game, this is for you. I liked it but wasn't very impressed.

12. Firefly the Game--This game is based on the popular, short-lived TV show. Players each pilot a Firefly-class ship through a small part of the universe doing jobs, avoiding the Alliance and the Reavers, and collecting resources to make the first two easier. I played this at Essen and enjoyed the hour long demo. Here we started late at night and decided to call it a night before finishing the game. The components are great and the play is complicated but very thematic. It's still too pricey and too long a game to add to our collection. Maybe someday...

We played a bunch of games in the Family Zone, but that will have its own post next.

Games I Tried at Spiel 2013 Essen, Germany

At the Spiel, I tried a number of different games that I enjoyed but didn't buy. Here's a sampling...

The first game we tried was Trains and Stations, a dice game where players build railway routes and stations in the United States. The dice are used to build railroads or buy stations at US cities, such as a ranch or a coal mine. These stations produce goods that can be used in the game. Once routes are built, the player with the most dice on the route collects all the bonuses for that route (some cities give bonus dice or goods) and any station owners on the route can produce their goods. The game was fun and interesting but didn't wow me. I'd play it again but I don't know that I'd buy it and I haven't put it on my wish list.

Trains and Stations box

The game in mid-progress

Mush! Mush! Snow Tails 2 is a dog sled racing game by the Lamont Brothers, who were at the booth demonstrating the game (and selling it too). The board and components are high quality. Each player has a sled with two dogs, represented by one card on the left and one on the right. The cards have numbers which indicate how fast each dog is going. The numbers are added together and the sled moves forward that many spaces on the track. The trick is, if the numbers are different, the sled has to move to the left or right (whichever side has the higher number, so the faster dog pulls the sled to its side). Playing cards craftily helps avoid obstacles (like trees and other sleds) and slide around turns in the track. The game is a lot of fun and more thinky than you'd think. The guys demoing it were pretty funny too. They are brothers and Scotsman, as you can tell from their outfits.

The Mush! Mush! booth

Amerigo is a new game by Queen Games where players are explorers (like Amerigo Vespucci) who explore and take over islands on the game board. The board is made out of large tiles that can be placed in any order, thus yielding many different configurations of islands. The most interesting thing in this game is the dice tower that comes with it. The tower has some cross beams inside, so cubes that are tossed in do not necessarily come back out. And cubes previously trapped come out randomly. It makes for an interesting randomizing mechanic. The game was okay but not great. Sorry there's no pictures of it!

Firefly: The Game was my most anticipated game at the show. Each player has his own Firefly-class ship with a captain, some fuel, money, and parts (for repairing the ship). Players move from planet to planet, picking up crew or equipment or jobs. The jobs are either legal or illegal. Additionally, they are moral or immoral, which can change individual crew member's morale. The jobs involve picking up cargo or people and dropping them off on other planets. Just watch out for the Alliance ship and the Reavers who can mess up carefully laid plans. We played a couple of rounds and thought the game was fun and the components fantastic. We didn't get it because it was expensive (50 euros which is about 80 US dollars) and a full game takes around three hours. We couldn't play it in one sitting at home and we can't leave it set up for the next night, because the kids would play with the fun space ships and such. Maybe when it's cheaper or the kids are older, this will be a great game to own.

Firefly in progress

The Firefly booth had special tables with the board and player areas printed on them. Someone came up and asked if the table came with the game. The guy demoing said that the game box has special TARDIS technology so it is larger on the inside and does in fact fit the table inside the box! He told that joke twice, though one time the passerby didn't understand. I guess he wasn't a Doctor Who fan.

We also tried The Downfall of Pompeii and Among the Stars, which I bought and will get their own reviews. We saw a really quick demo of Letnisko, which my friends bought and I reviewed here.