I can’t even call it game 1, I am just starting to launch into ISS Vanguard by Awaken Realms. This is an epic space exploration game where I started to explore a planet last night and got my crew setup and that was about it. Not to shabby for an hour with everything this game has really. So join me on Malts and Meeples and YouTube as I dive into this big game.

ISS Vanguard Setup

Let’s talk about the setup for ISS Vanguard. You got to see the finishing touches as I start the stream. But that isn’t all of the setup for this game. In fact, there is a fair amount to go through and get ready. But, like something like Lands of Galzyr, I didn’t find it too bad.

Pregame Setup

The biggest thing you are doing is getting the cards in the right order. So that means that you sort the cards, really sort the chunks of cards, by their type into numerical order. You maybe saw how many “Point of Interest” cards there are, don’t worry, you don’t go through and get them in numerical order. They are already in that, just wrapped in four different packs of sleeves. That is what I mean by sort.

The one negative I will say about sorting everything or getting them to go where they should, is that you are told what order the dividers go in, that’s great. Then you are told what card goes with them, also great. Except, it’s just telling. Some of them are really obvious, unique discovery, I know what is. It says unique discovery on the back. Some of the others you need to flip back and forth from the setup page to this is everything in the box page.

Starting Setup

For the most part, though, it is a very slick setup. And you can make it even slicker by just playing the tutorial. It’s the same planet I start on, same bits of story, same events even. But the difference is certain things, like picking your crew, they don’t happen like I did it. So the game picks for you already, probably ideal really, but not what we are doing. There are more videos walking through the tutorial anyways.

And it’s worth noting that no matter how many times you play ISS Vanguard, the pregame setup still needs to happen. I still pick out the characters I want to play with. So there is always some setup but it’d be much faster subsequent times.

Exploration

And then, next week I expect it to be basically planet exploration. How do I balance my exploring of the planet with completing the objectives. Since we are on the outside of a giant sphere bigger than our solar system, we aren’t coming back tot he same spot. So I want to see what is here, but not at the cost of failing the mission.

Upcoming Streams

Next week I am back to my normal time. That means Wednesday stream will be at 8 PM Central time. You can find the link for that here. The plan is to wrap up exploration if possible. Though, while I suspect I’ll be able to this time. In future streams some of the planetary exploration might take longer to complete. But join me for that and for the ship phase as well as I stream.

And then next Monday, I keep on promising smaller games. I have a couple new roll and writes I could try or other smaller games to get to the table. So that’s going to be the plan, it might even be revisiting a roll and write which I’ve already enjoyed. But I think, and this is just a gut feeling a few days out, I’ll be playing Bargain Basement Bathysphere again.

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