GAME

RACE FOR THE GALAXY

There is a story behind the development of every game. Race for the Galaxy by Thomas Lehmann may be about exploring the unknowns of deep space, but has taken a rather interesting journey of its own. It is something of the step-grandchild of Cosmic Encounter, by way of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Cosmic Encounter, in which players have one or more alien powers that change the rules to their advantage, introduced the concept of variable roles when it was first published in 1977. Twenty-five years later, Puerto Rico used a variation of the mechanic, only now with players choosing to produce, ship goods or build. The other players also get to do the action and the player who selected the action goes first and gets an extra...