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The Meeple Guild Online - Outer Earth surprised, which is a good thing

Few things are more satisfying than cracking the cellophane on a new game that you know little about and finding something that exceeded expectations. Outer Earth was most certainly one of those games.
Earth
Outer Earth concept art, from the Outer Earth kickstarter.

Few things are more satisfying than cracking the cellophane on a new game that you know little about and finding something that exceeded expectations.

Outer Earth was most certainly one of those games.

The box top has some rather earth-like modern windmills on the landscape that doesn’t exactly hint at the idea of terraforming another planet, although the aircraft in the sky do look more sci-fi.

Inside are some bidding paddles that admittedly hinted at a game style we don’t naturally gravitate too, that being one where players bid.

In Outer Earth the players bid for their spot on the turn tracker, which can give the first player an advantage in the sense of having greater choice in terms of what planets they buy. Players can choose to buy planet cards from the ‘planet market’ which go into their construction area.

That becomes the core of the game.

As the rule booklet notes, “The terraforming era has finally arrived for mankind. In Outer Earth, each player acts as a start-up developer trying to profit from the booming planet market by buying, building, and selling planets.

“However, the planetary development business is filled with risk and is highly competitive. The planet market changes constantly and players must often fight for the same opportunities. Out-compete other developers with proper resource management, strategic planning, and risk-taking to become the most profitable planetary developer on Earth and beyond.”

Players acquire development cards that they can then build on their planets, eventually selling plants that have achieved certain levels of development to acquire cards that have a value in terms of game-end scoring.

Players start with limited actions to draw cards, build and sell, but through the game those numbers can be enhanced to increase what a player can do on a turn. The game uses a small card and a quartet of dice to effectively track a player’s limit in terms of what can be done on a turn.

In terms of components Outer Earth, which is designed for two-to-four players, are nicely functional if not outstanding. For example the art on the cards might remind a bit of Uno cards, but they work just fine.

This is a game that will always be welcome on the gaming table for a play through, or two.

The game is designed by Paul Tzeng, (ww.paultseng.net), and was self-published.

Thanks to fellow gamers Jeff Chasse, Trevor Lyons and Adam Daniels for their help in running through this game for review.