Gravity is our friend!

I’m sure most of us don’t think about gravity very often. Even though this force keeps us all well-planted on Earth, we just take it for granted and don’t give it a second thought.

But if you’re floating around in space without much fuel, you may start thinking more seriously about gravitational pulls.

And that’s exactly how it is in the fun board game we’re reviewing today — Gravwell 2nd Edition.

In Gravwell, you’ll rely heavily on gravitational pulls to get you to your goal first. It’s a fun game with a bit of chaos and this year there’s a new edition to love!

 

How to play Gravwell 2nd Edition

The main objective in Gravwell 2nd Edition is the same as in the original game — to be the first player to get their spaceship to the distant Warp Gate. Players do this by playing numbered cards that propel them or their opponents that many spaces forward or backwards.

The big catch is that you may not know whether you’ll be shooting forward or backwards until your turn!

Since this is a 2nd edition of a game we reviewed over 7 years ago, if you’d like to get a rundown on the original game, jump on over to our original video review of Gravwell.

While the main gameplay is like the original, Renegade Game Studios has made a number of adjustments to the game that streamline it bit and add in more choices for the players.

Set Up

The first major change in Gravwell 2nd Edition is that the game now allows up to 6 players rather than being limited to 4 players!

When playing with 5 or 6 players, the players choose whether they want to begin at the Outer Warp Gate and race towards the center or start at the Inner Warp Gate and race toward the outer. However, no more than 3 ships can begin at the same location.

The next major change is that each player gets 4 special power cards tied to the color of ship they’ve chosen. Players begin with their Emergency Stop card ready to use. But before they can use the special powers on their other cards, they must first accomplish the task required to charge them up.

For Round 1, players are randomly dealt a hand of 6 cards. For Rounds 2 and beyond, players start the round by “Mining” (drafting) their hand of 6 cards. Mining is done by setting out stacks of 3 cards equal to twice the number of players. The first card in the stack is face down and the other 2 are face up. The player closest to the Merton Cloud (middle of the track) choose a stack first. That player then chooses which direction for the mining to continue (to the left or right).

This is slightly different than the drafting in the original game and speeds up this portion of each round.

Playing

Once players have their hand of 6 cards, the round begins by each player simultaneously choosing 1 of their cards to play. The players then reveal their card and resolve them in alphabetical order.

Another change in the 2nd edition is the addition of a new movement card. Now there are 4 types of movement:

• Blue cards are Standard Tractor Beams and move a ship in the direction of gravity.
• Red cards are Standard Repulsor Beams and move a ship away from gravity.
• Purple cards are Multipoint Tractor Beams and pull all other ships (and debris) toward that player’s ship.
• Orange cards (the new movement) are Multipoint Repulsor Beams and send all other ships (and debris) away from that player’s ship.

In one corner of the board is a graph that shows the distribution of the cards in the game that players may want to refer to. It clearly shows that the majority of cards are the Blue cards and that Purple and Orange movement cards are rare.

Each card has a number that indicates the number of spaces the player will move their (or other) ships in the proper direction (Tractor or Repulsor).

The key in each movement is where is gravity? Gravity is indicated by the closest object.

So if a player uses a Standard Tractor Beam, their ship will move in the direction of the closest object to their ship. If their ship is exactly the same number of spaces between two objects, the player counts the number of objects in each direction. Gravity will be the direction with the most objects.

Objects can’t share a space, so when moving, if a ship’s movement would end on another object, it continues to the next open space.

Special Ability Cards

Ship Ability cards let players bend the rules a bit during play and are unique for the different colored ships. For example, one of the yellow ship’s powers is doubling a cards movement value. And one of the green ship’s powers is ignoring a Multipoint Beam card.

The cards are double-sided with a Charged and Un-charged side. The Un-charged side lists the condition needed to “charge” the power. Once that is met, the player turns their card over to the Charged side and are then able to use it. Once used, the card is flipped back over to the Un-charged side.

End of Game

After all players have played their hand of 6 cards, a game round ends. If no player has moved into the target Warp Gate, play continues into another round starting with the Mining phase. Also, in starting a new round, all Emergency Stop cards are placed with their Charged side face up.

The game immediately ends when a player moves their ship into the Warp Gate opposite from where they started the game.

If after the 6th round, no player has moved their ship into their target Warp Gate, the player closest to their destination wins.

 

Can the whole family enjoy Gravwell 2nd Edition?

Just like we said in our review of the original game, Gravwell 2nd Edition is a great family board game. It’s simple to learn, quick to play, and a bunch of fun.

And now that it adds up to 6 players, even more family members can enjoy playing it together!

At its essence, Gravwell is a fun, light game of chaos.

You may have great plans for how you’re going to burst ahead, but then another player plays a card that comes before yours in turn order and moves ships in such a way that you’ll now be heading in the opposite direction!

Sure, you could use your Emergency Stop card and just not move that turn. But then you’ll be without it later in the round.

If you’re watching during the Mining phase at the start of each round, you’ll have an idea of what cards other players will have in their hand. But you may be concentrating so much on your own cards that you’ll forget what they might pull out.

It’s the second-guessing of which cards to play when and wondering what other players are going to play that we love. And players of all ages can get into that.

As far as the different ship abilities go, those can be hit or miss during a game. We love that they’re included in the game, but some of tasks to charge them can be hard to achieve. And when you do achieve them, it may be too late in the game to make a big difference in using them.

However, there’s also another way to charge a card. If you end a round without using your Emergency Stop card, you can turn one of the other ability cards over to its Charged side. That’s a great way to get some cards charged early in the game.

We also really love the unique models of each spaceship. The variety of shapes helps makes us feel like we’re flying our own ships.

Our only complaint is choice of card color for the new movement (Multipoint Repulsor). The orange is way too close in color to the red. And even though the symbol in the top left by the number shows the movement, the cards have been confused during game play. With so many colors to choose from, we don’t know why it couldn’t be more distinct like yellow or green.

 

How does Gravwell 2nd Edition score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

It’s pretty clear that Gravwell 2nd Edition scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter. They real question, now that we have 2 copies of Gravwell, is which one are we keeping?

With the basic game play being unchanged, the addition of the different ship powers, the streamlined drafting, and playing up to 6 players, it’s Gravwell 2nd Edition all the way!

If you’re looking for a fun, light race game with some gravitational chaos in the mix, we highly recommend getting a copy of Gravwell 2nd Edition for your family.

The Board Game Family would like to thank Renegade Game Studios for a review copy of Gravwell 2nd Edition.