Sometimes you just want to create your own planetary empire. Jump Drive kind of gives you that in a game where you race to build up a points engine as fast as you can. Jump Drive is a game in the Race for the Galaxy line of games from Rio Grande. And this one is the smallest out of all of them and only one of two that I’ve played. If you get the expansion for the game, you can play it solo. Or you can play it solo on Board Game Area, like I did last night. So let’s watch how it’s played and review Jump Drive.

How To Play Jump Drive

In Jump Drive you are racing to a point total, generally 50 points, in your empire. Each round you are gaining cards and then playing out cards to build out your space empire. These cards are split into two categories, planets and technologies. Both of them are going to give you more income, cards, and points possibly from playing them. And all of this is done simultaneously.

Turns

On your turn you pick up to two cards to play from your hand. You play either a technology or planet card or you play both. But to play a card you need to have enough other cards in your hand to discard to play them. If you play one card, either a technology or a planet and not two, you draw a card to add to your hand.

If you don’t have enough cards in hand to play a card you can choose instead of explore. When you explore you draw a number of cards to your hand and then discard so you add two new cards to your hand. The number of cards you draw varies depending on how many eye symbols, explore symbols, you have on your cards already in play.

One last thing about the rounds is military. There are military planets that you can conqueror with your military force in the game. Unlike planets where you gain them peacefully, you don’t need to discard cards are for gaining a military planet. Instead, you need to have enough strength in military in play to conqueror them.

Between Turns

Once you play out your planet and technology two things happen. Firstly, you gain points. You gain points for the total number of points that your empire is generating. That means points that you gained from this round and previous rounds.

The other thing is that you gain cards. Like I said, each planet and technology has two main stats. One being your victory points mentioned above. The other is your card draw. Like victory points, you look at your total card draw and draw that many cards into hand. Now, you only are allowed to have 10 cards in your hand at the start of your turn. So if you draw a greater number than that, you discard down to 10 cards.

You continue with this loop of turn and between turn until someone reaches or surpasses the point goal for the game. If multiple players pass on the same turn, which can happen with the simultaneous play, the player with the most points is the winner of the game.

What Doesn’t Work

There is a decent chunk of luck in the game. Now I say that, I think there are some ways that you can work around it and you always have something to do. But if you don’t draw planets and technology that work with the engine that you started, you might need to pivot hard and fast. And even if you do that, it might be too late in the game as the game normally lasts between 6-8 rounds.

The amount of satisfaction from building up your engine is sometimes cut short as well. You might be looking at building out a great engine, but because of the point total is not that high, your engine might just start really working and then the game ends. I think if you want you can play higher, but it still is going to go by very quickly.

What Works

The speed of the game is impressive. Each turn and decision is meaningful. But because of how it limits the number of cards you have in hand, it is limited in what you can do. So I like that the game is very fast. Now that is a negative if you want to build up a great engine. But I like that you play once and it is very easy to shuffle up and play again.

I like set-up for the game. It is just cards and some tokens for points. So it is super fast to the table. And that is going to make it easier to keep around. Now it is even faster on BGA with your turns and figuring everything out. But it is not a game where BGA is doing a ton of heavy lifting getting it to the table, like some others. But instead, this is a very easy and fast game to table in person.

Engine Building

The engine building element is solid in Jump Drive as well. Now, that is the whole game, you build up your engine. And you decide how quickly you pivot from cards/income to points in the game. And you need to do so quite quickly. But if you want to play a game that is just engine building, this is going to work really well for you.

I also like the early game in this a lot. That is where the biggest strength and decision space for the engine building comes in. You need to figure out how to get your engine up and running extremely quickly. If you need to explore a round, it should be in the first two rounds. If you explore after the first two rounds, you might find that you fall too far behind.

Solo Campaign

Finally, I like the solo campaign. Mainly because it is giving you different goals to shoot for in each version of the campaign. It is not super complex, everything you do is pretty easy to keep track of, but it is different each game. Is it much of a campaign, no. But it is a good way to make it into a solo game versus just see how high a score you end up with in seven rounds. It is fun to add just a little bit of extra to what you are doing.

Who Is Jump Drive For?

This is a good filler engine building game. I don’t think it is going to be a game to build your game night around. But I think it is a solid game for when you want a filler game that does a bit more. Often times with a filler game the decision space is very limited. Here is it is pretty limited but not completely limited and what you decide matters. And because it is so fast, it fits in as a filler or a game you play two times in a night. So if you want a filler game with a bit more to it, I think that is a game that can work well.

Final Thoughts and Grade on Jump Drive

Now, I say it in the video, I might sell my physical copy. That is not because I don’t like the game, I think it is fun. But it is so fast solo and asynchronously on BGA, that I might just play it there. But I also think I have a few people I game with who might enjoy the game. So that might keep it around. And I like that even with the expansion is fits in a small box so that means that it takes up less shelf space.

Now, the downside to the game is that sometimes you just end up with a bad game. I mentioned it in what doesn’t work. And it is generally the combination of two things. It is that you have a bad game. But it is also then that someone has a great game. So while you end up with 10 points after six rounds, someone else is past 50 because they got what they needed. This is sometimes frustrating, in a BGA tournament for example, but generally I find it okay because it is so fast to play that I just play again. So for that reason, that luck is a not a big deal to me.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C+
Casual Grade: B+
Strategy (out of 10): 5
Luck (out of 10): 6

Now, just a note on luck. I mention twice how it can bite you. Once in my thoughts and once in what doesn’t work. But I only give it a 6 out of 10 for luck. The reason is you need to pivot and sometimes it won’t work. But the option to pivot helps negate some of that luck.

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