Tiny Epic Galaxies - Beyond the Black

One of the best games of 2015, in this writer’s humble opinion, was a small box full of game. Tiny Epic Galaxies, using only a deck of cards, some wooden bits and bobs, and a fistful of dice, bopped the player on the head with some seriously addictive, fun gameplay. It basically worked like this: chuck some dice, blast off your rocket ships, acquire culture and energy (the game’s two resources), colonize planets through economy or diplomacy, upgrade your empire, earn victory points. First person to 21 VP triggers end of game. Tiny Epic Galaxies is a near-perfect dice placement gem. Easy to teach and learn. Simple, but with some real choices. Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black gives players a little more meat to chew on. The expansion, which requires Tiny Epic Galaxies to play, beefs up the original game with some cool additions. Now, when a player rolls doubles, they may hire a pilot. The player will choose one of their rockets to swap for one of the cool new Advanced Ships that come in the expansion. From now on, that ship has the pilot’s special ability. Pilot abilities include things like, “This ship acquires 2 resources instead of 1.” Pilots are worth one in-game VP, and a player can hire up to four pilots at a time. Certain pilots are only able to fly certain Advanced Ships, based on which faces the player rolled doubles of. However, if a player rolls 3-of-a-kind, they may hire any pilot to hire any Advanced Ship. The other awesome thing Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black adds is Exploration. Players may activate a “move a ship” die to travel to unexplored space. Once there, they will draw an Exploration Card which will have either a positive effect (“Discovery”) or a negative one (“Danger”). If it’s a Danger Card, the player must resolve it immediately. However, if it’s a Discovery, they can either keep it or draw again, hoping for something better. Exploration adds an enjoyable “press your luck” element that lends genuine tension and excitement to the game. Players also collect badges from Pilots and Exploration cards, which are good for VP during end-game scoring. Many of the games my group played were so tight that the victor relied on VP from badges to win. It ain’t over ’til it’s over! I would place Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black in the “essential” category of expansions. There is no situation in which I can foresee myself ever again playing the base game without it. It takes an already strong game and makes it even better. Adding in the “Satellites and Super Weapons” and “Drones” mini-expansions that came with the Kickstarter versions of the base game and expansion only furthered the experience. The result was a delightfully crunchy point salad with enough choices to really get my synapses firing. Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black seems to scale well with different player counts, though with five it can get a little long. It is enjoyable for two. Like the original, the expansion is solo playable. The AI once again ranges from “for babies” to “hard af” depending on which Rogue Empire you choose to compete against. With its smooth design and interesting decisions, Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black really brings the strategy. It takes Gamelyn’s best title and knocks it even further out of the park. This game will be hitting my table on the regular for many, many years. Now I wonder if there’ll ever be an expansion to Tiny Epic Western…

Tiny Epic Galaxies has become one of my favorite games and in its base form it's beautifully simple and portable. Beyond the Black adds just enough extra complexity and decisions making without compromising the genius of the original game. The addition of bonus point badges makes strategizing around when and how to end the game much more critical since if you end things too early your opponent's secret mission and badge collection can end up causing them to ultimately outscore you. The pilots are interesting with situational powers that can change how you decide to go about trying to win the game and the unexplored space is a tempting press your luck mechanic that can change the momentum of the game. Things can get a little convoluted if you have the mini-expansions in the deluxe edition of both the base game and the expansion but the normal retail copies of both strike the perfect balance. If I have one complaint it's that you can't quite fit all of the expansion's pieces into one of the small boxes making it less portable than the original game and that sort of defeats the purpose of the "tiny" gimmick. However the expansion makes for a richer, more intense version of a game that was already very fun.

The expansion adds some cool variety to the game, however it seemed that, in a 2-player game, the added variety of ways to score points makes the game both more random, and decreases interactivity. This is because the interactivity is highest when people are competing for the same ressources (i.e. colony track) and using culture to defeat each other's efforts to do so. Having alternative ways to make points just turns the game into a multi-player solitaire. It may be that at 4 or 5 (not sure this is possible) players, the expansion adds a lot to the game, but at 2 I am not convinced. The base version of TEG is an amazing game in its own right, no need for this expansion really.

The Tiny Epic games always make it out for our weekly game night. We generally prefer competitive games with high strategic gameplay that we can get through in about an hour. The Tiny Epic games are perfect for that. Galaxies is our favorite of the bunch, and with this expansion it's even more epic. Replay value is high due to the vast amount of galaxies you can cycle through. The addition of deep space adds a nice element to the game and rectifies what could be considered the only real flaw in the base game (which was lack of economic or diplomatic options to move your ships to in smaller games). Highly recommend.

This game is fantastic fun as an add-on expansion to Tiny Epic Galaxies. the tiny epic collection of games has proven to be one of the best game series out there. I highly recommend them.

Came in perfect condition. Haven't been able to get it to the table yet but read over the rules. It integrates nicely with the base game and adds even more replayability. Looking forward to playing with it this weekend and will update my review accordingly.

Easy to learn and a great add on to the Epic Galaxies base game

Must have expansion with some cool new abilities with pilots who give your ships special abilities and planets with specific powers keyed to this expansion. I love it!