Review: Space Base

Introduction & Overview

The United Earth Nations needs you! As the Commodore of a Space Base, your job is to draft new ships into your fleet to patrol the 12 sectors under your watch. Use cargo vessels, mining ships, and troop carriers to make profits and expand your influence. Only one Space Base Commodore will be promoted to U.E.N. Admiral of the Fleet!

This is the premise of Space Base, designed by John D. Clair (Mystic Vale, Custom Heroes). The game was first published in 2018 by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) in an English edition. The illustrations are by Chris Walton (Warmachine Prime Mk II, Monsterpocalypse).

It is published in Spanish by Maldito Games (there is some language dependence on card abilities). It allows games of 2 to 5 players, with a suggested minimum age of 14 years, and an approximate duration of 60 minutes. The retail price is €40. For this review, a copy of the Spanish version by Maldito Games was used, kindly provided to us by the publisher as a review copy.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), with dimensions of 23.5×23.5×7 cm (a medium square box similar in size to Seikatsu), we find the following elements:

204 Cards (40×89 mm)
- 192 Ship Cards
- 12 Colony Cards
30 Charge Cubes (plastic)
15 Resource Track Markers (plastic)
5 Command Consoles (player boards)
2 Dice (resin)
Rulebook

How to Play

In Space Base, the objective is to be the player with the most victory points when at least one player has exceeded 40 points at the end of a round. Each player will have a board with twelve ships, each associated with a number from 1 to 12. On each turn, the active player will roll two dice and all players can receive rewards from their ships, allowing them to accumulate credits, income, or victory points. Each player can choose whether to sum the two dice together or use them individually. The active player can trigger blue effects, while passive players can trigger red effects (green effects trigger in both cases). After this, the active player can purchase a new ship from the supply by spending all their credits (even if it costs less than what they currently have) and adding it to their board in the corresponding sector slot, tucking the card previously in that spot above the board in a deployed position to reveal a different effect. Finally, if the player bought a ship, they will reset their credits level to their income level.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Player Board. It features twelve sector slots to hold ships alongside three tracks numbered from 0 to 40. The first track is for credits (used to buy new ships), income (the baseline value to which credits reset after buying, since all current credits are spent), and victory points.

Each player starts the game with an identical set of 12 Starting Cards that guarantee activations on every turn as the active player. Each card is associated with a numerical value between 1 and 12. These cards show a primary effect in their center area (along with an illustration of the ship and its name), while the bottom band shows the deployed effect.

Each player can buy Upgraded Cards that will replace the one occupying the corresponding sector. The card previously in that slot will be rotated and tucked under the top of the board, activating its deployed red ability.

It is important to discuss the color coding of the abilities. Blue abilities trigger only when you are the active player, red abilities trigger only when you are a passive player, and green abilities trigger in both cases.

Some abilities feature charge slots on which Charge Cubes are placed. When the card is activated, if it does not yet have the required number of cubes, a new cube from the supply is added to it. If, on the other hand, it has the required cubes, the effect can be spent and resolved, even without needing to roll the value associated with the card (as long as the ability can be activated according to its own stated conditions).

To activate ships, the active player will roll two six-sided Dice with values ranging from 1 to 6. The roll affects all players, who can independently decide whether to activate 2 ships by using the dice separately, or 1 ship by adding the dice together.

Finally, we have Colonies, which are a special type of card that “nullifies” a sector slot when acting as the active player, but provides instant victory points.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

Each player chooses a color and receives a set of 12 starting cards, a player board (onto which they place the cards), and three markers for the credits, income, and victory points tracks.
Colony cards are arranged in an orderly row.
Shuffle each tier of ship cards and reveal six cards from each deck to form the shipyard market.
Randomly choose a starting player and give them the starting player card. The second player begins with 1 credit, the third player with 2 credits, and the fourth and fifth players begin with 1 income.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Space Base is played over an indeterminate number of rounds. In each round, each player will take a turn as the active player (the remaining players acting as passive players), starting with the first player and continuing clockwise.

As the active player, follow these steps:

The active player rolls both dice.
The active player decides whether to use the dice together or separately to activate the blue and green abilities of their ships.
The other (passive) players also decide whether to use the dice together or separately to activate the red and green abilities of their deployed ships.
Finally, the active player may, if desired, purchase a new ship or a colony card if they have enough credits, dropping their credits track to 0 and resetting it to their current income value. The card is placed in the corresponding sector slot, and the one previously in that slot is rotated and tucked above the board. If a ship was bought, reveal a new card from the matching deck to refill the shipyard.

After this, the turn passes to the player on the left.

Game End

The end of the game is triggered when a player reaches or exceeds 40 points. The current round is completed, and the player with the most victory points is declared the winner. In the event of a tie, an entire additional round is played (continuing with full rounds until a single player holds the highest score at the end of a round).

Personal Opinion

In the board game world, finding genuine innovation is increasingly difficult. Most designs settle for recycling earlier ideas and/or recombining them in fresh ways, but without truly marking a turning point. It is something we just have to accept, especially considering the massive influx of releases every year.

Within this realm of reinventing the wheel (more or less), there is a quiet “internal” race to dethrone hits that have achieved massive success and sustained evergreen status with regular reprints. These are games that clearly take inspiration from a predecessor or adopt its core concepts with minimal alteration, tweaking the peripheral design elements to deliver a superior gameplay experience.

Today we are looking at one of those titles whose mission is to unseat a giant. Let’s see how Space Base holds up on the table, but not before thanking Maldito Games for providing the review copy that made this tocho-review possible.

In Space Base, we are met with a game whose central mechanic revolves around rolling two six-sided dice (with values ranging from 1 to 6). On each turn, the current player makes a roll with both dice to activate one or two of the ships stationed on their player board (each assigned a number between 1 and 12). The active player must decide whether to sum the dice (allowing them to activate a ship with a value of 7 or higher if the sum matches) or split the dice to activate two different ships (each with a value of 6 or lower). Upon activation, these ships provide credits, income, and/or victory points (displaying an ability on a blue or green background).

Finally, the player can acquire a new ship from those available in the shipyard if they have enough credits (spending their entire balance regardless of the cost) and add it to their fleet, replacing whatever sits in the matching sector slot. The displaced card is rotated and tucked beneath the top of the board (above any previously tucked cards), revealing a new red ability. As mentioned, all credits are drained, resetting at the end of the turn to whatever value is marked on the income track.

There is also the option to purchase colonies, which are a special type of card that, tied to a specific value, shuts down any further primary activations for that slot and prevents purchasing future ship upgrades there. The upside is that they grant a hefty chunk of points immediately (without requiring any dice activations on later turns).

The goal is to have the most victory points when the end game triggers—namely, when at the end of a round, at least one player has hit or passed 40 points.

The real charm lies in the fact that on every single turn, the other players (the passive players) get to act too, choosing independently from the active player whether to combine or split the dice to activate their ships. The key difference is that they can only trigger red abilities (plus green ones, which always fire), meaning the blue abilities on the primary ships will not trigger during off-turns.

Thus, turns flow in a race to see who can reach the end-game score first, with the shipyard purchase phase being the critical turning point where player engines diverge in terms of available powers.

It is a simple, direct, approachable game with a heavy dose of luck, but it is thoroughly fun. The excitement around the table whenever your passive ships trigger big off-turn payouts is great. And it is equally amusing to watch the disappointment on your opponents’ faces when the dice go completely your way instead of theirs.

Circling back to the introduction, many of you will have already guessed which game Space Base is trying to replace. Indeed, we are looking at a close sibling of Machi Koro (here is its tocho-review). Both are card games driven by dice rolls that trigger card effects in each player’s tableau depending on color coding (amusingly, they even share nearly identical color schemes, with subtle tweaks).

In turn, Machi Koro pulled a similar move on Catan, lifting the core mechanism of rolling dice to trigger production on numbered hexes belonging to any player, but stripping away the shared board spatial expansion. There, the goal was simply to be the first to build a set of landmarks.

And while Machi Koro did well commercially (even spawning a Legacy version), it is a design plagued by major flaws given its target audience. On one hand, the overwhelming swing of luck. Yes, it is a dice game, but it wasn’t uncommon for a player who made sound card purchases to simply never roll their numbers, stalling out completely.

On the other hand, and stemming directly from that issue, an unconstrained playtime that could drag out into endless slogs filled with empty turns where almost nothing triggered, eventually souring players on the game entirely.

Well, John D. Clair didn’t overcomplicate things: he took Machi Koro’s strengths and applied the necessary mechanical tweaks to squash those two glaring problems. And, in my view, he did so quite effectively.

To eliminate dead turns where nothing happens, players start with a full spread of cards covering every possible roll result. As the active player, you are guaranteed to trigger something, eradicating dead turns and ensuring you can almost always take a step forward to build an ever-growing snowball engine (which is what both this game and Machi Koro are all about).

And to make off-turns far more engaging for passive players, buying a new card effectively gives you two upgrades. On one hand, you get the shiny new primary ability. But on the other, just as importantly, the card that previously occupied that slot is deployed to grant an effect that triggers on everyone else’s turns.

This generates near-constant movement across all players’ tracks on almost every turn, preventing downtime, stalling, or boredom. But it doesn’t stop there: to set itself further apart from Machi Koro, the designer adds a couple more ingredients that add real spice to the experience.

The first is the ability to independently choose whether to sum or split the dice. Combined with the asymmetry that develops across tableaus, this presents a neat micro-decision that, while often straightforward, adds a welcome layer of agency and flexibility.

The second is the massive card decks that form the central market. You get diverse card effects that go beyond merely bumping track values—they create synergies, link different sector values together, or even offer alternate instant-win conditions.

As a final positive note, I really like the colony mechanic. It is essentially a deliberate sacrifice of a sector slot (giving up future active-turn rewards on that roll) in exchange for a direct point boost tied to the sector’s number. In a way, it reminds me of Dominion (here is its tocho-review), triggering a race to see who pivots into buying victory points first, knowing full well that your engine’s efficiency will drop as your active options dwindle.

All told, I believe Space Base succeeds right where Machi Koro stumbled. It is an entertaining dice-chucker with no greater ambition than providing a great time seeing if lady luck is on your side, all without overstaying its welcome. Whether a design like this—which borders on filler territory in terms of conceptual weight—has a place in your collection is another question. A couple of expansions exist: one increases the player count (fitting, given its casual, lively vibe), while another introduces a narrative campaign.

To frame the style of game we are talking about, Space Base could be compared to Splendor (here is its tocho-review) in terms of its snowballing race toward an endgame trigger, albeit with significantly more dice-driven variance.

As for scaling, the game runs smoothly at any player count. The main difference between player counts is simply having more or fewer turns as a passive player, which the game balances out naturally. At lower counts, you will rely more heavily on your active turns to build up wealth, whereas at four players (luck permitting), three passive turns can easily yield far more than a single active turn.

Regarding replayability, the vast decks offer plenty of variety to support different tactical paths. Furthermore, because the market is variable, games tend to follow different trajectories depending on what ships turn up. It hits the table easily and frequently without feeling stale.

In terms of production, the components are solid, featuring good card stock with a linen finish and decent snap. While the elongated card format is unusual, it makes practical sense to keep the required table footprint manageable. It is also a nice touch that the expansion includes custom card sleeves. The tracking cubes are clean translucent plastic, and the player boards use thick cardboard. The rulebook is perhaps slightly overlong, bogged down by excessive examples given the simplicity of the rules. The 14+ age recommendation seems exaggerated—likely an artifact of standard publisher testing regulations, as the theme isn’t overtly violent and mechanically an 8-year-old can play without issue.

Visually, the comic-book art style isn’t entirely my cup of tea, but it fits the lighthearted tone of the game. I do appreciate the visual panorama formed across the 12 ships in your baseline fleet: if you mistakenly place a ship in the wrong slot, the broken color gradient immediately alerts you to the error.

And let’s wrap this up. Space Base is a fun, breezy, and engaging mid-light game that openly borrows from predecessor designs while fixing their primary shortcomings by keeping turns snappy and eliminating dead air. Yes, there is significant luck involved, but that is to be expected from a dice-centric engine builder. I have no major complaints other than noting that you may already own games that fill this exact niche in your collection. It does exactly what it sets out to do. For all these reasons, I give it a…