So, New Frontiers. It’s the Race for the Galaxy Board Game where Lehmann finally goes full Puerto Rico.
I’d been eager for a Puerto Rico killer. The game and I have a lukewarm history, but back in 2000 when half the internet was geocities and Settlers was fresh off the BGG #1 throne, you played a lot of Puerto. It’s just what you did. I never loved it, but I remain pretty attached simply due to time spent together (and memory of the sessions and people that came with it).
New Frontiers does fix every single thing wrong with Puerto Rico, which is great. On a first play, though, I found it also failed to duplicate the things that Puerto did right, and I was left with TWO boxes on my shelf, two sides of an imperfect coin (side note: oddly, I found that Bruxelles 1897 was a much more effective Puerto Rico killer despite the complete lack of mechanical overlap. The competitive and decision space felt very similar).
When New Frontiers popped up on BGA beta out of nowhere, I started playing it pretty compulsively and each time I love it more. I’m four games in now and it’s really showing it’s nuance. No, it doesn’t have the juicy “when do I produce?” question or the tense sparring over shipping space, nor the long term planning of where to put limited “colonists” (cough, cough) to activate parts of your engine until the next Mayor phase. But it does have other areas of tension and interaction that I"m falling in love with.
Then, last night, I played it in person again with my sister-in-law. It was bland on the table. It felt like it ended too soon and plagued with too many obvious choices. I don’t know if that is an artifact of the 2-player game vs. 3 or 4, that she made it too easy on me by missing the action selection nuance, or that we were both tired at the back half of another long week?
Anyway, New Frontiers. 3-4 player asynch, I cannot get enough of it. 2 player on the table, twice disappointed. I’m going to stick with it until I can ferret out what makes it work, because when the game clicks I absolutely love it.