Beta Print and Play

Change Log (v0.999)

Goals: Tweaks, Science, Variety!

1) Science Upgrade

One of the very first design ideas for ODG was to have Science and Fleets available by spending dice that weren't necessarily useful to fill in boxes on cards. Two additional currencies that could be spent for progress, tech use, etc. They felt a little too similar though, and finally an idea emerged for how to differentiate the two! Instead of two sides of the starbase both featuring rows with restrictions, the science side now is a catch-all receptacle for dice, with options on how to spend them:


Science is now always represented by face-up cards, showing the science value in the top-right. Science can now come from probes (random card from top of deck, 2-4 science), or study (chosen Location from in play). It also cleans up the previously clunky Study row, which was sometimes useful/sometimes not. Dice in the Research Lab can always be used for something, and that's good!

2) Adversary Events

With more time and playtesting, the Adversary Events are much more differentiated in ways that tie them more strongly into their theme. The Hungry Nebula starts with all five events in play, and they're slowly removed (reducing your options!). The Neeble-Woobers' events become colonies for their card, and so forth. More variation, more good!

3) Non-identical Card Pairs

As with One Deck Dungeon, the main deck is made up of pairs of cards (ex: two Ogres in the ODD deck, two Twenso in the ODG deck). In ODD, while the skills/items vary, the boxes are identical. We've adjusted the cards in Galaxy to be slightly different numbers, while conveying the same concept. This adds a bit of variety to the deck, which is especially useful in 4-player games.

4) Rules Clarity

Lots of changes in the rulebook to update things for clarity, more diagrams, more examples, which we hope leads to easier understanding of the game for new players! One of our biggest goals for ODG is to make getting into the game reasonable. It's got complexity, but we want you to play and enjoy it as quickly as possible.

Change Log (v0.99)

Goals: Streamline and Simplify!

1) Dice Stay On Cards until Cleanup!

This is the big change, and it required a lot of work to get right. Previously, you could spend dice to complete a row / section anywhere in play, and immediately those dice went to the supply, and whatever thing you did was resolved immediately. This was neat, but also confusing - the #1 issue we had in live demos was people not clearing away dice, getting confused on what was spent and what was still available to use, and that was with me looking over someone's shoulder to correct them! It was surely going to be a big issue for folks at home, unless everyone invited me over to watch (No, do not do this, not only is it 2020 and I can't visit, but also...that is too many houses).

Instead, we've moved all resolution to the end-of-turn Cleanup Phase. During the Action Phase, you place dice everywhere, much like One Deck Dungeon, basically trying to fill as many things as you can, spread across 4 Galaxy cards, the Starbase (the starbase?! See #2 below), and the Adversary Confrontation card. This has the benefit of being able to visually see all the progress you're making in one turn, and it also gets back to the ODD feeling where you can rearrange dice and puzzle out just how to do things best. During the Cleanup Phase, there is now a Resolve Step where you look at cards one-by-one, gain the benefits of filling rows/sections, and then remove the dice to the supply.

Overall, It's much simpler, and the core game loop is now:
1/2) Game Maintenance stuff (Adversary/Discovery)
3) Do all the things you can with your dice.
4) Gain the benefits of doing all those things.

Obviously, this required a lot of rebalancing of individual Location and Encounter cards, so that the rewards you gain from them properly reflects the amount of effort required to complete them. So there're number changes across the board. Hurray!.

2) The Starbase, Science, and Fleets

We have combined the Research Lab and Fleet Logistics cards into one large card: The Starbase. Your Starbase starts at Class 1, and you can spend science to upgrade it all the way to Class 4. Upgrading the Starbase makes the conversions from dice to fleets/science better, but it also gives you access to Starbase Discs each turn. What are they, you ask? A new gameplay concept, which has made paying Fleet + Science costs make more sense, and also fit in line with the changes described above.

Now, all Fleet/Science costs are represented in blue rings. To fill a ring, you pay the cost, and place a Starbase Disc on it, which remains there until Cleanup. A Class 1 Starbase has one Starbase Disc - so you can only pay one Fleet/Science cost per turn! Upgrading your Starbase allows you to do more, and is now a more crucial part of your infrastrucure.

Also, with the changes to allow each row to only be filled once per turn, the various rows on the Starbase are much more interesting - and as they improve, it has a bigger impact on how quickly you can build up Fleets/Science, especially for confronting the Adversary.

3) Continued Adversary Revisions


One of the biggest goals with the Adversaries is to make them unique (so every game feels different) but not so complicated that running their actions feels like a chore. We've streamlined the Adversary Events for each, and now 100% of the rules for each Adversary live on a double-sided Adversary Reference card, that sits in play all game (some Events add rules to the Reference card, tucking underneath!)

Very excited to get all of these changes in place. The print and play PDF is updated, and the current files are also available for play on Tabletop Simulator

Change Log (v0.98)

Goal: Game Length + Complexity

One of our top goals with One Deck Galaxy is to have a good mix of strategy and accessibility. Our last version was over-complicated in some ways, and was also taking longer to play than we'd like - so we've made adjustments to get that playtime down to the 30-60 minute range where it belongs. We've also streamlined mechanics and explanations in ways that don't significantly affect depth but do make things much more easy to explain and understand.

1) "Federation Level"

Previously, as you completed Milestones, you tracked the number of Federation Tokens you'd placed on to your Society and Homeworld (previously "Civilization") mats, and there was a table on your Society Card that told you how that affected your Colony Limit and how many times you could confront the Adversary. We've unified this into a single concept called Federation Level. Now, your Society Card has a track where all your Federation Discs live. It has numbers 1-2-3-4-5, with the 1 visible at game start and 2-5 covered by discs. As you remove discs to place them on completed Milestones, you'll see your current Federation Level increase.

Federation Level is used in several places. Your Society Special Tech still improves as your level increases, now with a basic level, and better versions at Level 3 and Level 5. Your Homeworld card shows your Colony Limit (1P: Fed Level x2, 2P: Fed Level +1). The Adversary Confrontation cards now specifically list the Fed Level required for each confrontation. Finally, many Adversary's Defeat conditions (the things that make you lose!) now directly reference Fed Level. By tying all of these concepts to one easily visible stat on your Society card, your progression is a lot more visibly clear, in a similar way to Experience Level in One Deck Dungeon.

2) Grouped Milestones

In previous iterations, we tried to give each Society a varied set of milestones. This wound up being less satisfying than it would have seemed, and took away a sense of direction or knowlege of how to progress. In v.98, each Society has three Milestones, escalating difficulties of the same concept. For example, the 2P Builders have milestones for total dice value of 35, 45, 55 in their dice pool. This gives the Builders a clear goal: Their Federation Level increases as they gain dice, and techs that let them increase to high dice values.

This is one of the areas we'll be working on most for number balance, as it's a fairly fresh concept.

3) Adversary Reform

Adversaries felt a little too same-y, and we want them to feel uniquely threatening! So we reworked lots of their abilities and victory conditions, and created the Adversary Event system. This replaces the messy Reshuffle token / phase. Now, when you start the game, you shuffle the Adversary's 5-card Event Deck, and place it face-down underneath the Galaxy Deck (where the Stairs card would go in ODD.) Every time you reshuffle, the top event occurs (at the end of the current phase - no more instant interruptions!). Each Adversary's events are very different, and reflect their unique abilities and means of interrupting your progress.

Adversary Confrontation also went through a change - instead of placing tokens onto the Adversary, you'll be removing them from a track much like the Federation Level track. You'll still claim victory by confronting the Adversary 4 times, but now it's much clearer how that happens. The Confrontation cards now sit directly to the right of the Adversary card, with boxes that line up directly to the tokens you need to remove.

4) New Cards!

We've expanded the deck from 36 to 40 cards. Hurray cards!

5) Homeworlds + Graphic Design

"Civilization" cards are now Homeworld Cards! As such, they have lush backgrounds depicting the homeworlds of your favorite Insulan Aliens. It's all very pretty. With the change to Milestones and Federation Level, we've revamped the look of the Homeworld+Society cards and they're really sleek now.

Change Log (v0.96)

1) Resources!

In the last version, Resources were entirely used for accomplishing Milestones. Now, Resources are valuable because they make some of your Techs more powerful as you progress through the game. Civilizations also start with some resources.

2) Tech Overhaul - The Techs in the first Beta version were very straightforward, to test balance levels mostly. Every tech has changed, and instead of 18 duplicated techs there are now 32 different ones available (and they have names!).

-Resource Techs
[FORCE REACTOR]: Roll [Y]. if you have 4 [FUEL], also gain [Y-6]
[VERDANT NETWORK]: Roll [B]. Increase [#PLANTS] different dice by 1.

-Spendy Techs
[EXPEDITIONARY FORCE]: Spend [Fleet x 2] to add O to each Location.

Resource Techs provide ways for techs to grow in power over the course of play. Some get better after reaching a resource threshold, others increase gradually as you accumulate resources. This gives more meaning to which Locations you go after (and who gets them, in a 2P situation).

Spendy Techs give clear ways to spend Fleets and Science for benefits. Costs are always in the text of the tech now.

3) Adversaries

Simplified the Neeble-Woobers Escalate to not involve the # of dice rolled, just an effect for each color. Also changed the way they steal colonies - no longer from the top of the deck! Instead, they take the card in play with the most icons. You now have some control over it, but it's also a bit nastier in some situations.

The Hungry Nebula's hard side has had its numbers increased, and also when you defeat its' Adversary Encounters, they are discarded instead of exiled.

4) Duplicate Locations

If you draw a location or encounter that is already in play (or multiple Adv Encounters), it is discarded and a new card is drawn. This ensures a bit more board variety.

5) Reshuffle Phase / Token

Reshuffle interrupting actions was a bit of a timing debacle. Instead, when it's time to reshuffle you do so immediately, and place a Reshuffle Token on the Adversary. At the end of any phase, if there's a Reshuffle Token, you remove it and then do the Adversary's Reshuffle effects. So basically, the bad stuff just waits a little bit.

Importantly - if you need to place the Reshuffle token and it's already on the Adversary, you lose the game immediately. You have to be careful once the deck is small - time is running out!

6) Colony / Adv Disc Limit

These tables have been updated. The early part of the game is a bit more forgiving for Colonies, because it wasn't quite interesting enough to start the game with a limit of 1. Also, specified that if you are at your Colony Limit, you can discard a Colony to claim a new one.