Alien Frontiers

Hey this is Michael.

Alien Frontiers is a Clever Mojo Games production by Troy Niemann. This is a Science Fiction game that is easy to learn and teach!

                   Last year this game utilized Kickstarter to fund its production and I jumped on board guarenteeing myself a copy. I just played it for the first time last Saturday!

                   WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!

In Alien Frontiers you are trying to colonize the moon. The first player to place all of their colonies on the moon ends game play and the person to have the most victory points wins. To build colonies you must gather energy and ore. This is done by utilizing the Dice, "Ships". When colonizing a territory on the moon you receive, if you have the majority of colonies present in that territory, a special ability. These special abilities can sometimes enable you to win or lose the game.

The "Ships" can do more than just gather energy or ore. They can also produce more "Ships", Steal ore/energy and/or cards from other players, and collect Alien Artifact Cards. Alien Artifact Cards give their holder special abilities, somewhat similar to the terrirtory bonuses.

Alien Frontiers has many similarities to worker placement games. The "Ships" act as meeples for claiming actions per round and their roll determines what you will receive. In Alien Frontiers each player rolls their "Ships" and based upon their roll they will determine where to place their "Ships" and what they will receive.

The rules for this game are laid out perfectly. The game play is explained in two pages and then the rest of the rule book goes through details of Alien artifacts and abilities of different actions you can participate in. It is the best written rule book I have ever read!

I have played this game with 4 player and 2 player. Both styles were fun and kept me thinking. The rules outline changes for 2 or 3 player games that enable the game to have the same feel as the 4 player version.  Both games i played seemed to last approximately 90 minutes.

Clever Mojo games is currently play testing an expansion to Alien Frontiers which could add up to 2 players. I am on the email list and plan to order or help fund a copy as soon as they allow me too. 

This game is quickly rising up my BGG Hot and Top Ten lists.  http://boardgamegeek.com/user/spikemike01