@Matt1990 from Boardgame Geek, June 19, 2020
From my own personal experience, I have learned to be wary of games based on books, films, or television series that I love, as they can often fall short of my hopes for them (a little like how they say you should never meet your childhood heroes). Despite my natural caution however, after some research I decided to take a risk and invest in Firefly: The Game (FTG) and happily, it has become one of my favorite games.
Let’s find out why.
The aesthetic of FTG is of hard-bitten, down-at-heel rogues, touting pistols, smuggling contraband, and dodging the law. For those not familiar with the Firefly television series, think of a cross between cowboys and spaceships. For those who know Firefly, suffice to say that the game oozes all the charm and unique atmosphere of the series.
If asked to describe FTG in one sentence, I would say it is a competitive pick-up-and-deliver game, set in space, executed in a sandbox style which allows you to deliver goods when and how you want.
If I was given a few more sentences, I would add that players will need to judge which goods/jobs to accept, and which resources and crew to hire, based on the balance of risk/reward, with bigger risks potentially yielding bigger profits. The game makes extensive use of resource cards, each with modifiers that enhance your ability to earn money, while a combination of a deck of event cards and simple dice mechanics provide randomness and the thrill of uncertainty.
While the game can look daunting to a new player, it is actually fairly simple to begin playing as the core mechanics can be distilled down to only four actions: move, buy, deal and work, each of which can be simply explain. The complexity comes from understanding the small intricacies of how to optimize your choices to get the greatest benefit from them. With all the people I have played with, they began uncertainly, then grew in confidence as they played, and ended up excitedly trying to work out the most efficient course of action by the time the game ended.
I’m sure there are plenty of other reviews that describe in detail the rules and mechanics of the game, so I won’t do the same here. However, what I will describe is the feeling I get when I play the game.
I must have played FTG at least half a dozen times, some with just the base game and some with the Blue Sun expansion. I don’t think I’ve won a single game, but I quickly realized I didn’t care, because I find the process of working jobs, delivering goods, building up resources and crew, and earning money an intrinsically enjoyable experience. I even played the solo mode once, in which you had to earn a certain amount of money within a certain number of turns. I lost that time as well, but I was having so much fun I didn’t care.
However, if you’re the kind of person who loves to plan grand strategies and then follow them to a flawless victory, you will probably be disappointed. There is too much luck in the event deck, the dice-rolling and even in simple movement (which is done with a deck of cards that sometimes throws obstacles in your path) for precise strategy. Having said that, broad strategies will work perfectly well, as long as you have the initiative to adapt to the circumstances the game throws at you.
I recently realized that FTG is almost entirely a multiplayer solitaire game, with each player simply racing to complete the objective before everyone else. But as I keep coming back to, the intrinsically enjoyable nature of working jobs and earning money means that this isn’t a problem, even for someone (me) who usually doesn’t care for multiplayer solitaire.
The only time this has become a slight problem was when playing a four-player game with two novices, but fortunately they were able to learn quickly by watching the more experienced players. This is an important point to note though; I had to study the rules thoroughly before teaching it to one other player, so if you buy this hoping for a game simple enough to just open and play, you will be disappointed.
Another practical concern for the prospective buyer is the sheer size of the game. The board in the base game is quite big, and if you buy the Blue Sun and Kalidasa expansions with their extra board sections it becomes huge. There are thirteen decks of cards in the base game and more in the expansions, each of which also needs space for a discard pile. Each player needs space for their player board and the cards they will accumulate. You either need a huge table to accommodate everything, or other nearby flat surfaces to take on the components that won’t fit. Or you could play on the floor but beware careless relatives and curious pets.
Despite the obvious practical difficulties this huge size presents, I absolutely love the epic feeling of setting up and playing this enormous game. It feels like I’m diving into a space opera/RPG/adventure, perhaps something akin to a game like Twilight Imperium but without the six-hour play time.
FTG has also garnered itself several expansions since its release. I have bought the two biggest expansions: Blue Sun and Kalidasa and can thoroughly recommend them. While I cannot speak first-hand for the other, smaller expansions, there are many here on BGG who sing their praises. Happily, though, I think that the base game stands perfectly well by itself and would certainly recommend playing it this way if you aren’t interested in spending too much.
Now to wrap this ramble up into something resembling a conclusion. FTG is a sprawling, sand box, delivery game, chock-full of cards and with a few dice on the side. It is a game of simple beginnings and intricate depths, providing an enjoyable experience for those who want to burble along delivering goods, those who want to calculate how to squeeze the maximum profit from their every action, and all those in between.
If you have even a vague interest in science fiction or space games, or in pick-up-and-deliver or racing games, do yourself a favor and have a look at Firefly: The Game.
