Quick Facts
Age range: 8 and up
Play time: 30 minutes
# of Players: 2-4
Price point: $29.95
Anyone who ever read the rules of Galaxy Trucker from Czech Games Edition knows that truckers can add a lot of different pieces to their craft, and they should add as many of all of them as possible. With the game’s new Keep on Trucking expansion, you get even more options to create an amazing ship and then watch the universe smash it to oblivion.
Keep on Trucking builds on last year’s excellent 2nd edition redesign of Galaxy Trucker. Long-time fans will see some familiar tiles from the game’s original expansion, but they’re just a small part of the changes that Keep on Trucking delivers for game play.
Let’s grab some parts from the junkyard and check the galactic charts for the top five things you can look forward to in Galaxy Trucker Keep on Trucking.
A New Fleet of Ship Options#
The original game provided three basic ship designs. The expansion gives you three new ship designs that add a crazy warped-space twist. With the basic ships, players hoped for very low or very high die roles during astroid and laser blast adventure cards, because they witnessed the ship. The new ships give you no reprieve.
In the smallest of the new ships, every side of the ship is numbered from 2 to 12, guaranteeing hits somewhere during battle. Likewise, the large ship gets the same numbering system with the added challenge of high and low numbers in frontal attacks wrapping around to the ship’s side.
The expansion also brings back the classic science fiction TV show ship design that can lead unlucky ship builders to experience saucer separation. This made my heart very happy.
The Flexible Cyan Alien#
The expansion also introduces a new color of alien. In the base game, brown aliens help with your engines and purple aliens help your guns. The new alien color, cyan, gives your ship a one shot special ability.
You choose the alien’s special ability after everyone finishes building their ships and establishes the launch order. The abilities include things like saving you money due to lost components and earning extra credits from trade goods. Our favorites are the micro navigator who boosts your speed in open space and the techie who gives you an extra battery for powering tiles.
Shiny New Tech Tiles#
Speaking of tiles, Keep on Trucking delivers a lot of new technology tiles. Some will look familiar, like the combination tiles that have a gun on one side and an engine on the other. Others are just a new and different as the aliens.
The indestructible plating tiles give your ship extra protection to balance the dangers presented by the new ship designs. Stasis chambers let you store extra crewmembers in case of emergency. The reactor furnace and catapult tiles give you new ways to use goods blocks picked up during your trip.
The booster tiles are most interesting as well as being the most challenging to successfully use in the game. Boosters can help your cannons, engines, and shields, provided they’re directly connected to the tiles they’re boosting. That can give you some headaches during ship building, but with practice (and luck) you’ll work out the best tile combinations.
Extreme Adventure Cards Ahead#
As if keeping your ship together wasn’t challenging enough already, the Keep on Trucking expansion presents you with official printed versions of the Rough Roads adventure cards that were originally offered as a free print-and-play download.
Experienced truckers can include a few of these cards in the deck as they prepare for each run. The key word in that sentence is “few “, because these cards guarantee nasty outcomes for your ship. The rules note that “if you don’t think it’s funny when your ship breaks into two pieces”, then don’t use this expansion. The rules are not kidding.
Tweaks for the Transgalactic Trek#
Finally, Keep on Trucking cranks up the point value for the Transgalactic Trek scenario with new trucker title tiles, a tile dock, and a two-player double-tile variant.
These tiles give you new ways to earn bonus victory points at the end of the run by building either complex or truly beautiful ships. The two-player variant rewards you for picking a particular way to score points through bonus tiles during your first run and then repeating that method through the subsequent runs.
Verdict#
We started playing Galaxy Trucker when it first came out. We loved building ships and sending them on missions, but other games gradually took its place in our lives. When the second edition came out last year featuring streamlined gameplay and other tweaks to the rules, it changed everything for us. The Keep on Trucking expansion makes us love the second edition of the game even more.
The booster tiles and reactor furnace present interesting challenges as you build your ships. We specifically love the new catapult tile because it improves your offense while simultaneously giving you reasons to pick up low value goods. Likewise, the adventure cards and new ship designs unleash wonderful levels of chaos into the universe.
If you’re a Galaxy Trucker second edition fan, this expansion is a must-have item for your game shelf.