Ok, the first boardgame I want to review is Starship Captains. This is a 1 to 4 player game (yes, you can play solo!) for ages 12 and up. In Starship Captains you play as a fresh, new captain of your own vessel straight out of (Starfleet) the Space Academy! Note that the game is not about Star Trek. Honest. It's not. But it sure feels Star-Trekky. As a green captain you are given a beat-up ship that's 1/2 way to being derelict. You need to fly around the known star system earning fortune and glory! And maybe a few more laser blast holes in the side of your ship. You are playing for victory points, as it is with most Euro-style games. There are several ways to earn the points:

• complete cool away missions
• develop diplomatic ties with the 3 known factions in the star system
• beat up pirates
• train your crew and give them commissions and promotions

While you're doing these things, you can acquire pirate prisoners, friendly androids from the android nation, cool STUFF for your ship and more. If you ever watched Below Decks, the humour is really similar. If you haven't watched Below Decks you really need to!

The game play takes about 25 minutes per player to play through, but I find that to be kind of low. Most of our games have run 2-1/2 to 3 hours. Maybe we just take our time. Anyhow, if this sounds like your kind of thing, check it out!