Alien Frontiers – A brave new world, with dice
It’s time to explore and colonize a distant alien planet. Of course, others are trying to do the same.
As with any exploration, there’s an element of luck. And Alien Frontiers is no different. In fact, Alien Frontiers is largely based on the luck of your dice rolls.
Roll and place your dice to gain the best advantages in securing resources and colonizing the most advantageous territories of this alien planet. You’ll have the make the most of every turn in order to beat out your fellow colonizers. After all, they’re trying to build the most colonies as fast as they can as well.
But don’t be caught off guard thinking it’s just a light and easy board game because it involves a bunch of dice. For a dice game, you’ll be surprised at how much thinking you’ll have to do.
We believe that’s what makes it so great!
What’s Alien Frontiers all about and how do you play?
The best suggestion we have for getting to know how to play Alien Frontiers is to watch Trevor’s video review – it’s a quick way to get a feel for how to play the game.
The high-level summary version is that in Alien Frontiers, players are trying to establish colonies on an alien planet for victory points. There are a number of ways to get colonies on the planet, but they’ll involve getting energy and ore to construct your colonies. The tough part is that players have a limited number of ships (dice) to dock at different ports around the board. So every turn, they’ll have to make the best choices from what’s available.
Oh, and by the way, options are severely limited by the roll of the dice. In Alien Frontiers, dice are considered spaceships and there are restrictions on where they can dock (depending on what is rolled). Some locations require a roll of doubles while other locations require a straight or that the combined pips add up to 8 or higher and so forth.
By controlling territories on the planets and by acquiring Alien Tech cards, players will also gain different abilities that allow for dice rolls to be changed (for a cost of course). Players also have opportunities to steal resources from the other players. And once they start battling for control of those territories, player positions on the score track begin to fluctuate too – which all add up to a fun game!
Can the whole family enjoy Alien Frontiers?
Even though game play in Alien Frontiers is built on a lot of dice rolling (which typically denotes a game with a lot of luck), it also requires a lot of thinking. As such, it’s best played with those of double-digit age. The published recommended age is 13+ but we think it’s safe to play with 10+.
We’ve heard that the published recommended age on a game box is for someone of that age to be able to play it on their own. So in that sense we don’t think you’d be able to sit a few 10 years olds down and have them pick up the game and play on their own. But if older players are involved, the younger players could get in and be fine.
However, with that said, the best game experience for Alien Frontiers is still with the teenager and up crowd where everyone’s strategizing and trying to out maneuver the others. There’s a lot of back-and-forth on the score track as players work to claim dominance in a territory and thwart others. And when everyone’s working to make their optimal moves each turn, the game shines.
With so much dice, isn’t it all luck?
Get out your thinking cap, because Alien Frontiers is a lot more than luck. Yes, doing well in Alien Frontiers has a lot to do with the luck of the dice rolls. But as you progress in the game, you can take advantage of ways to mitigate that luck. The powers on Alien Tech cards or the bonuses from controlling certain territories will really come into play to carry out your plans – so strategic placements and purchases are important. And sometimes the best move is to dock your ships to block your opponents from being able to get what they’ll need on their next turn.
As such, there’s a very good balance of strategy in the game. The catch is that you can have great ideas about what you’d like to do on your next turn while you wait for others to play out their turns. But you’ll still be at the mercy of what you roll at the start of your turn. Trying to find the best combination once you’ve rolled is heart of the game. So if you like that type of tactical thinking and adjusting on the fly, then Alien Frontiers may be for you.
The only downside to Alien Frontiers is that as the game progresses, player turns take longer. As the game goes on, each player has more ships to dock and a number of Alien Tech cards that let them manipulate their dice. And since players can’t plan out all their tactics until they roll their dice, it means they need to do that part of their thinking in the moment, which then translates into longer turns along the way. But since all these elements are a key factor of a tightly scored game, it also builds the drama and can make for a satisfying conclusion.
Fantastic, high quality components
The other cool thing about Alien Frontiers is that it’s considered the first major success of a board game being funded and published through Kickstarter. In 2010, Clever Mojo Games posted this board game project on Kickstarter and it was a major success. Funding levels were incredible and it precipitated a ton of board game designers flocking to Kickstarter to see if they could replicate such a hit.
Because it was so well funded, Clever Mojo Games was then able to ensure that the game was full of high quality components. And for that we’d like to thank all those early adopters that backed Alien Frontiers on Kickstarter.
A successful game takes more than a fancy Kickstarter campaign. At the core, a game has to be a solidly good game to have lasting success. And Alien Frontiers has met that mark.
How does Alien Frontiers score on the “Let’s Play Again” game meter?
Alien Frontiers also gets good marks on our “Let’s play again” game meter. It’s not a board game that we start again as soon as we finish a game. Typically when we finish a game of Alien Frontiers we need to take a mental break because of how close the game is and how the lead can be lost (or swiped) during those last few turns. And when we finish, we’re still excited to play it again.
Thanks Game Salute and Clever Mojo Games for providing a copy of Alien Frontiers!
It’s such a unique and great board game the boys in our family love to play.
If you like Alien Frontiers, it’s even better with the first expansion. See our latest review of Alien Frontiers: Factions.
| The Board Game Family Game Ratings | |
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Caleb |
| Has not played | Brooke |
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Jaden |
 |
Trevor |
| Has not played | Mom |
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Dad |
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Average |
| Pick up a copy! |
This game has been on and off of my wishlist. The reason I’ve been waffling is one of the points you touched on. It’s hard to plan out your turn ahead, which makes for longer turns, which makes it less accessible to a lot of non-gamers and even to some gamers. Is there any possibility of the next player rolling for their turn so they can plan ahead while the current player allocates?
Aaron – I’ve thought about that as well. We like finding ways to speed up turns in games. Like in Carcassonne drawing your tile at the end of your turn to get ready for your next placement. Or in Dominion that’s why players draw cards to their hand as part of the end of their turn so they can think through options while others go. However, it won’t work in Alien Frontiers for one major reason – you leave your dice on the board taking up spaces on the board to block other players from those locations. Having spots already taken by other players when it’s your turn is a big part of the game. If players were to pick up their dice after they take their turn, the drama and fun in the game is lost. So unfortunately, we haven’t found an easy solution to speed up the turns.