Earth is too crowded, but there’s a whole universe to explore! You have been recruited for an interstellar effort to make unknown planets habitable. So fasten your seatbelt and load up those rovers and polyomino pieces (who knew alien planets were so suited for squared pieces of terrain). It’s time to get out there and secure the future of humanity!
Name: Planet Unknown (2022)
Designer: Adam Rehberg, Ryan Lambert
Publisher: Adam’s Apple Games
Play type: tile placement, variable player powers, pattern building, pattern matching
What the game is about
Can you make an untouched planet habitable for future generations? In Planet Unknown, you are playing as a unique corporation trying to ‘terraform’ a planet. Using polyomino tiles, you will be trying to fill out your planet while removing debris and trying to max out on the unique skills your corporation grants you.
How the game works
You start the game by picking a corporation and a planet you want to make into a habitable environment. You can pick the generic one (meant to level the playing field for new players in multiplayer games) for either, or you can take your pick from the bevvy of unique corporations and planets. For the solo game, you’ll also need a twenty card event deck – made up of a certain number of cards of varying difficulty, based on the experience you want. Green cards usually give you a boon, red cards take something away or prevent certain things, while orange cards sit in between. Finally, you deal yourself four solo objectives at random (keep three) that you can try to achieve over the course of the game.
Over the course of twenty turns, you will be placing tiles on your planet according to the placement rules (start at the other edge and connect orthogonally to previously placed tiles from there – barring exceptions). You continue until twenty turns have passed or you cannot legally place a new tile from the offer anymore. Tiles are drafted from the (Lazy) S.U.S.A.N. Space Station, which consists of six depots, each holding a small tile and a large tile. When you have drafted a tile, you spin the Space Station one depot.
Each tile consists of two different types that correspond to tracks on your corporation board. Placing a tile allows you to advance the appropriate tracks once, earning a bonus if applicable. The two most common bonuses are medals (at the end of the game you earn points to the highest medal value on each track) and synergy boosts (which allow you to advance any track once).
- The Civ track is tied to getting civ cards. N+1 cards are dealt (the number of players plus one, but in solo you get 3) of levels 1-4, allowing you to get more points or to change the end game scoring conditions. Once you reach a milestone, you get to look at the appropriate civ cards.
- The Water track is the only track that advances under certain conditions, namely when you place the tile onto planetary ice. You can place it anywhere, you just don’t get to advance the tracker if it’s not on ice.
- The Rover track is basically your planet’s housekeeping. The first time you advance onto a rover square, you get to place a rover on the tile you just placed. Whenever you reach a number on your rover track, you get to move the rover that many spaces. You can collect life pods (for points) or clean up meteorites. Some tiles come with a meteorite; if they are still there at the end of the game, they prevent both the row and column they’re in from scoring.
- The Forest track sometimes allows you to place biomass patches, little 1×1 squares that can be invaluable to fill up empty squares on your board.
- The Tech track is heavily reliant on your corporation. Whenever you pass certain thresholds, you will unlock new powers and abilities that heavily tie into your corporation’s identity.
- Finally, the Energy resource is a wildcard. When you place this, you get to advance any track that’s on or adjacent to the tile you just placed. It doesn’t have a dedicated track.
After twenty turns (or when you cannot place a tile anymore), the game ends and you tally up your score. This is a beat-your-own-score affair, yes, but the target score depends on the composition of the event deck. There’s a handy chart in the rulebook that helps you calculate the score to beat.
You score points for medals on resource tracks, complete rows and columns (without meteorites), collected life pods and meteorites, objective cards, and civ cards (if applicable). If you equal or surpass the scoring threshold, congratulations – you have just won Planet Unknown.
Theme, setting & narrative
Thematically it is quite similar to Terraforming Mars, but it’s way more grounded here. Placing a tile to advance a track? That makes thematic sense to me! You are trying to make a planet habitable, and with every tile you place, you can feel the ramifications. Don’t get me wrong though – this is in large part still a puzzly abstract experience, but being able to thematically ground some decisions makes it come alive a bit more.
How does it play?
Planet Unknown offers a refreshing take on the polyomino tile-laying genre, combining it with a separate board that allows you to unlock other stuff similar to games like Clever and Hadrian’s Wall (the latter of which you can expect a review for). Add to that the race to try and fill out your planet as best as you can, and there’s a game that gives you lots of interesting decisions – do I go for the bigger tile that has one or no relevant terrain types, or do I go for the small one that profits two of my tracks? Not all decisions come down to that, but you can’t blindly go for the bigger tile all the time. That also means you cannot ignore the power of big tiles indefinitely. A cool tension for sure!
The real puzzle of this game isn’t really in what tiles to place where, but more about how you can place tiles efficiently and try to fill rows and columns the best way. Most of the time, though, you’ll have a few objective cards (or your corporation) that force you to think harder about which tile to place where. Of course the end game scoring of rows and columns forces you to think about that too, but for those to score, the tiles might as well have been blank.
Where things get really interesting is when you combine all of the above with a unique corporation and a unique planet. While planets mostly impose another limit on how you can and cannot place tiles, the different corporations can really shake up how you play the game. For example, the Horizon Group must physically pick up meteors and deliver them to rover tiles, while the Wormhole Corporation gets to make a choice every time they advance on the Forest track – additionally, their biomass patch placement breaks some rules other corporations can only dream of. (How every corporation and every planet works is detailed in the back of the rulebook – well done!) Variable factors like this elevate Planet Unknown beyond being just another tile-laying game. While the game is similar in setting to both Terraforming Mars games, the execution is wildly different and refreshing.
The event deck was a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I liked how it’s an easy to operate timer. On the other hand, the card effects can be extremely swingy and random. If your bad cards do nothing and you draw the positive effects at the right time, you’re in the driver’s seat. If those are reversed, you can forget about winning. It’s too bad that you need the event deck for solo play, although I think you could house rule it into being just a timer, or you can stack the deck. On the other hand, it is a boon that you can tune the deck to your liking. Some pointers would’ve been nice, though; like ‘add x green, y orange and z red for an easy/normal/hard/expert experience’. Now you have to calculate that yourself, as well as what your target score will be.
I do wish the game would have some way to mess with me more, other than the event cards. You pretty much always know which tiles will be available to you, which also removes the pressure of a depot running out (and thereby ending the game). I did come across a sweet variant when I was watching Colin over at One Stop Coop Shop, which removes a tile based on the colour of the event card and the ring of the tile you took. That variant can be found here, and I plan to try it out the next time I play this game solo.
Finally, I want to conclude with the production quality of the game – it’s not great. The player boards feel like they missed the final finishing step of production, giving the impression of a used game. For the deluxe edition I got, a number of people complained online that the wash on the rovers and meteors was uneven and spotty. My copy has this too, but it doesn’t bother me. Just something for you to bear in mind!
Comparison with The Isle of Cats
When I knew I’d be getting a review copy for Planet Unknown, I held off getting The Isle of Cats because I didn’t think I could warrant owning both. I’m glad I got it eventually; not because I like both games, but because now I can compare the two! Here are some pointers:
- Tile-laying, reimagined – The Isle of Cats does this with card drafting and hand management, Planet Unknown with elements of engine building, unique player powers and chaining synergy bonuses to optimal effect.
- Objective cards – while they have them both, Planet Unknown is more about other ways to score points. There are fewer objective cards here, and they aren’t as varied as the goals you’ll see in The Isle of Cats.
- Thwarting your plans – save a few event cards, Planet Unknown has no way to mess with your plans. You also have near-perfect information as to the tiles that are available. In The Isle of Cats, your sister is a fierce opponent that often messes with your plans.
- Scoring threshold – both games have a scoring threshold that determines if you win or lose. In both cases, this is a variable score that depends on how well you manage your sister’s doings (in The Isle of Cats) or the composition of the event deck (in Planet Unknown).
- Planning and thinking ahead – both games offer this, but at different times. In The Isle of Cats, you do this while drafting and choosing which cards to play. Planet Unknown is less restrictive this way, as you’ll mostly be thinking about the tiles you’re gonna place this round and the upcoming ones.
Overall, I think Planet Unknown is lighter than The Isle of Cats, while still providing a satisfying and comparable experience.
What you might like
- a clever and interesting polyomino-goes-engine-building combination
- you have a lot of placement freedom – it is more often about which tiles you place than where you place them
- huge variety in planets and corporations, especially the latter and how they play
- something similar to, if not a little less restrictive, than The Isle of Cats
What you might not like
- the event deck can vary wildly in effect and impact (and some pointers as to how you can quickly create an easy/normal/hard game would’ve been nice)
- there is no AI to hinder you; only the occasional event deck curveball
- production quality is not great
Conclusion
Even though it does take up some table space, Planet Unknown is a lighter puzzly experience than you might guess based on that. Don’t let that dissuade you from trying out this most excellent tile-laying game! The rules are easy to grasp, the game sets up quickly, and the planets and corporations offer a deep amount of replayability right out of the gate. Just don’t let the sub-par components claim otherwise!
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Stidjen Plays Solo 