It’s time for two heavy hitters to take center stage as we have ISS Vanguard from Awaken Realms facing off against Stars of Akarios from Open Owl Studio (formerly OOMM Games). Both of these come in big boxes. Both of them promise space and both of them are campaign games. But there are a lot of differences as well, so let’s dive into the two games.

Stars of Akarios

Stars of Akarios is a space adventure game where you are dealing with the fallout from your home planet, or at least your schools planet having been destroyed. You don’t really know why, but as you explore and come across new things, you realize that the stability of your world wasn’t quite as a solid as you expected.

Stars of Akarios is split into three areas. Firstly, and this is the main part of the game, you play tactical space combat. Flying your ships around and dealing with enemies on a hex based board. Then there are two areas of exploration, planetary as you fly around with your main ship to find points of interest in various systems. And planetary exploration where you reveal tiles and interact with points of interest. But it is mainly that tactical space combat.

ISS Vanguard

ISS Vanguard also offers space exploration but at a different level. Humanity has been called out to the stars. In previously thought to be dead DNA with no real reason for it, a secret message was found, some coordinates that led humanity out into deep space. You navigate the stars and explore planets to figure out why humanity was called out there.

ISS Vanguard is also split into multiple parts. Firstly you have planetary exploration as you go down to the planet, interact with points of interest, make discoveries, and possibly fight monsters. Then you play a ship phase as well. In the ship phase you are researching discoveries you’ve found. Using production to improve your ship. Getting new crew ready to go on missions and dealing with situations that arise on your ship. As well as navigate the stars and planets to find new places to explore.

Similarities

The biggest is that they take place in space and are epic space games. Both of them promise a big space story them, and both of them, as far as I’ve played, deliver on that. They provide very different space stories though. Stars of Akarios is much lighter, it reminds me of something like Farscape. ISS Vanguard is more serious in what it’s doing and reminds me of Another Life, a very different type of space show.

Both of them also have different phases or parts of the game that play very differently. Technically both of them will let you travel between other missions. How that is handled is differently. In Stars of Akarios it is very basic resource management. Do you have resources to travel, you can travel. If not, you start taking stress. ISS Vanguard, it is almost and equal phase to the game as a planet. Building up the ISS Vanguard to be able to explore more is an important part of the game.

Differences

There are a lot, I highlighted a number of them in similarities, actually. That is not the right spot to do it, but it makes sense. There are elements that sound similar that play differently. And it’s worth noting those because some of those things might draw you to both, but only one might work for you.

Space Combat

Firstly, Stars of Akarios is built around space combat. When you fly in the stars you most of the time find space combat. It is tactical in nature, and really doesn’t exist at all in ISS Vanguard. ISS Vanguard is one big ship you travel with. And while in Stars of Akarios you pilot the Sparrow between points, you scramble the fighters a lot. So that is a different feature to that game.

Planetary Exploration

Also, planetary exploration is different. Both let you play with that to find story elements. But in ISS Vanguard it is about the new discoveries you find. And it is about managing your resources and dice to make sure you can complete what you need to do. A lot of that involves story and exploring, but done in an Awaken Realms style. I say that as it reminds me of Tainted Grail that way.

Stars of Akarios, it is very different. That is a 7th Continent style exploration where you place out new locations as you move around. The grid allows you to move around it and explore new things. And it offers challenges that just pop up. You get ideas as to what might be coming or is happening on a planet, but less explicit detail about locations.

Tone

I mentioned this already, but I want to talk about tone more. The two games play with different tones. ISS Vanguard is a reverent game as you look to the stars and wonder. The question is, what is out there? When we get beyond our sun and our solar system and even our galaxy, what is out there? That is the question that you try and solve.

Stars of Akarios borrows from so much. And I say borrows because I don’t think it steals. I get the feeling of a lot of sci-fi shows, movies, and stories. To name a few I feel like I see Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, Space Dandy, Enders Game, and more in the bit that I have played. And a mish mash of all of those things is going to feel less cohesive. But it opens itself up for a wide variety of fun moments.

Battle – ISS Vanguard vs Stars of Akarios

So as they both enter the ring we see that they are heavy weights in the campaign space game area. Both offering different fun and exciting moments. And for a lot of people who they want to win is going to come down to your preference in how the games work. Because as much as I compare the two and the two will be compared they are very different experiences.

And for me, it’s a very tight battle. Next week I wrap up 10 different experiences with both games in the span of a year. I see what makes them different and I see what is exciting about both. And in all fairness, neither of them is going to leave my collection because they both are great.

So as we watch them duke it out, the question I ask is which would I want to continue playing solo. My experience with both of the games so far, which do I want to see? I think that answer is Stars of Akarios, which is my winner.

Stars of Akarios for me is an experience that works well solo. The elements of the game are fun to play solo and I like being able to collaborate with myself in the midst of space combat to see how I can work together with my ships. ISS Vanguard is streamlined well for solo, but it’s an experience that I’d love to play with more to see what happens next and to spread out that decision making to experience the full story.

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