In Master of the Galaxy, you build a bag and use cubes to improve your Eldar Race.

Do it right and you will be Master of the Galaxy… Oh, that’s where the name comes from!

The Galaxy is vast, rich and open to any species who discovers space flight… but nine Elder Races are expanding through space, ready to assimilate or exterminate anybody who stands in their way.

Master of the Galaxy Summary

Bag Building! Deck Building! I love a good deck-building game. OK, so bag building is essentially a deck-building game but instead of a deck, you have a bag of something. But, its core is still in the deck/pool building genre.

Automobiles is a very good bag builder, probably my favourite. There you are also building cubes of different colours so the comparison is a good one.

The problem comes when comparing the game thematically. It’s a space game, something I’m not really a fan of. But, if I were to pull a space game off my shelf what would it be?

If I’m in the mood I’d rather play the shorter, better and easier-to-teach Roll for the Galaxy. Overall I am never going to pick this over Gaia Project, not ever. I prefer the mechanisms and overall game in my currently joint-favourite game-ever so Master of the Galaxy, while good, can’t compete.

The mechanisms of the game are good.

You draw 3 cubes from your bag and use them. Then you need to create a way of earning the cubes of the colour you need to activate abilities.

It’s clever, but sometimes you draw cubes you don’t need and have a very short turn. Although, turns are quick once people know what they’re doing it doesn’t excuse turns that are dead.

Black cubes are used to cancel cubes you’ve placed out so you can get them back if you need them for something else. But if you draw 1 or 2 of them, they can be useless. It made cards that use black cubes to activate very desirable, more than they are supposed to be I think.

Overall it’s a decent game, good looking game with fun mechanisms.

Jesta ThaRogue