Games for Couples: The Star Trek Deck Building Game
Improve your relationship by playing games together! We take on the challenge of finding 2-player games that both men and women enjoy.
We picked up this game originally because we loved Star Trek. (Honestly, if you ask me to rate the best movies of all time, The Wrath of Khan is near the top of my list.) The game started with the Next Generation, drawing characters and situations from the TV series that we grew up watching in the 80s. Then, they released a set based on the Original Series with classic characters like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The third and final release, called Next Phase, focused on the Borg, the terrifying cyborg enemies trying to assimilate all the other civilizations of the galaxy.
Alex Bykov, the designer, created an addictive and satisfying game loop. You have a basic starship and a deck of cards that represent your crew and maneuvers. You draw and play 5 cards each turn, which add to your Speed, Attack, Diplomacy, Shield stats, or give you points to buy new and more powerful cards. If you feel strong enough, you can choose to explore, flipping the top card of the space deck. Here you will encounter difficult missions or dangerous events that you have to use your current cards to overcome. If you succeed, you are rewarded with some sort of bonus to help you along, but fail, and you'll incur a penalty that can slow your progress.
Occasionally, you will encounter battle cards in the space deck. This means your and your opponent's ships face off in a tense combat against each other. In these situations, you get to really see who is building the better deck as you face one another head-to-head. This is also the part of the game the guy in the relationship loves--shooting photon torpedoes and blowing ships up!
There are various ways to play the game, so it can be tweaked a bit to match your play style. The Next Generation sets focused on capturing new and more powerful starships, but some feel this often leads to a runaway leader effect, or you can get slammed pretty hard if you run into a powerful enemy or event early in the game when you are not ready yet.
The Original Series did away with the extra ships and focused on the crew and hand-held equipment. This set also had the Infection scenario, where you have to deal with various strange afflictions that can harm your deck.
There are also team play scenarios--Klingon Civil War and Romulan Reunification--and you can even play cooperatively against the Borg, though be warned that it will likely end in your assimilation.
The fun is in building the deck you want. Perhaps the ladies like this part of the game most, because it's a bit like shopping. At any given time you have 9 cards you can buy from the Starbase and they constantly cycle more through. You can populate your deck all with Klingons and be singularly battle focused. Or you can instead make a diplomacy deck with Spock or Picard, or devise a sneaky Romulan deck. Or just try to get your best-loved characters so you can quote all your favorite lines. (Yes, I know all Kahn's lines and can deliver them with pitch perfect intense superiority.)
We found that this game really shines with 2 players. It became one of the games that we played over and over and over, because it is easy to set up, plays differently each time depending on what cards you can buy and what you encounter in the space deck, and it lets you relive all the special Star Trek moments with the characters you love so well.
Star Trek Game Garage
More Game Articles