Planet

Urtis Šulinskas. Art by Sabrina Miramon. Blue Orange, 2018.

2-4 players | 30- 45 minutes | Age 8+

Planet is a tactile game in which players build their own individual world by selecting vibrantly coloured tiles containing different biomes: ocean, desert, mountain ranges, forest and glaciers. Each player also has an individual objective card and is aiming to collect as many of their specific biome tiles as possible in order to score extra points at the end of the game. Animal cards are also obtainable throughout the game, and the player must have the largest biome relevant to that animal to win the card. At the end of the game, the winner is the player who has accumulated the most points, through their personal objective and through their quantity of animal cards. The card layout is reasonably long so requires around a one-meter length table or floor space.

The game is competitive and allows for the players to deny others tiles of certain biomes. However, this directly competitive element is usually overlooked by the personal objective taking top priority for the player as they focus on building their own planet. Tactics are also made harder by the design of the game. The maximum number of players is 4 and, on each turn, there are 5 tiles to choose from. Therefore, the last player to pick still has a choice of tile. The game isn’t focussed on destroying each other’s chances, rather on individually creating a habitable planet that can gain the most points.

As there are two elements of focus: the objective card and animal cards, this could lead players to stray away from creating a diverse planet, to focus on solely collecting a specific biome. Also, as there are many animal cards which aren’t played in each game this could occasionally lead to a lack of diversity depending on how the cards have been drawn.

Once an animal card has been won, the player has no more responsibility to maintain that card. The game focuses on creating an ideal planet which doesn’t encounter any hostilities: all outcomes are based on the players’ choices and are suggested to result in stable habitats. To create a more realistic representation of how a planet operates, a die which contains natural disasters or unexpected events which compromise a player’s ecosystem could be rolled at intervals throughout the game, disrupting any tactics a player has or to encourage greater diversity on their planet. Despite its limitations, Planet encourages the player to create their own diverse planet that is capable of supporting life.