(xylophone playing)
- Hey everyone I'm here today to tell you
about The Search for Planet X coming to Kickstarter
this week from Foxtrot games.
This is a two to four player logic game
in which you will become an astronomer
searching the cosmos for Planet X.
This game comes with an app
that acts as the keeper of knowledge
for where all things in the cosmos are.
Every player is trying to figure it out for themselves
in the race to find Planet X.
Each of these areas can only contain one object
and the objects that they contain will often influence
what is in other sectors.
There are 12 sectors in the game, 18 for advanced play,
and each sector contains only one of these objects.
So via the clues that you'll be getting
as you do your searches,
you'll start to narrow down where Planet X is.
You'll have a player screen to hide your research
and your chits behind.
For example, the screen stops others
from seeing your worksheet here to fill in as you get clues.
So what are these planetary objects we're searching for?
There's a lot of things like comets,
or gas clouds, or dwarf planets.
And all of these things have their own
set of rules to go with them.
Remember, it plays like a logic puzzle,
so comets are only found in sectors that are prime numbers
and also asteroid fields are always adjacent
to other asteroid fields.
Gas clouds are adjacent to empty sectors
and Planet X is not adjacent to any dwarf planets.
On a turn you can scan, target,
attend a conference, or locate Planet X.
To scan, you ask the app if there's a particular type
of planetary object in the sectors you're searching.
So, for example, are there gas clouds
in sectors three to eight?
Once you get your answer, you can make a note
of it in your research.
Moving on to targeting which you can do twice per game.
When you target a sector, the app tells you
what planetary object is there, if there is one,
but it won't give away where Planet X is.
You can also attend a conference
which will give you a new logic role
or a new hint to help you further deduct the location of objects.
After your actions, you'll move your pawn based on
how much time your turn took.
The app will tell you how much time your turn took.
Then you'll rotate the sun.
During the game, what's going
to happen is your observatory will be checking
out certain fields of vision at a time,
just like you can't see all of the night sky
during every time of year, your observatory will
only be able to scan certain sectors throughout the game.
And there's a little rotate-y piece
in the center of the board,
that's the technical name by the way "rotate-y piece",
that will spin to show where exactly it is
that you can check out at that time.
Next up is the theory submission phase
where players will simultaneously pick their theories
for what they think is where
and then reveal them in turn order.
So you'll put your pieces onto the board
to kind of present your theory at large
and as the game progresses, you'll get closer
and even closer to that discovery
or finding out that you happened to be wrong.
This is something else that is tracked in the app
which is super helpful because that way there's no one
with perfect information so no one has to GM the game,
there's no one who's just sitting there with a book
that's flipping through pages to say,
"Oh no, it can't possibly be in sector three."
That's something that the app randomizes
and the app gives out all that information
so everyone at the table is actually getting to play
and no one's having to kind of moderate things
for everyone else.
The other interesting things about empty sectors is
Planet X will never actually come up as Planet X
so there's no moment in the game when the app just says,
"Ding, ding ding! You won."
You have to actually accurately identify Planet X.
Just searching a section is just going to tell you
that that section is empty.
You know that there are a couple of empty sectors on the board
but is that particular empty sector the one
that has Planet X?
You don't know.
You're going to actually have to work
through all the little bits of the puzzle
to be able to say, "No for sure,
"I know this sector contains Planet X."
The game ends when someone accurately finds Planet X.
Now during that last round, other players have an opportunity
to also discover Planet X and they'll get a few fewer points
for doing that as well.
So just because you discover Planet X doesn't necessarily
mean you'll win the game.
And I like that because it kind of fits how science works,
you know, maybe you work a lot of a project
and someone else has a eureka moment,
but you put in all the research and publish.
Hey guess who actually gets credit for it.
(laughing) That actually sounds really terrible.
Aww life.
Planet X is on Kickstarter now.
The link is below.
And we'll see you next time.
Check Planet X out on Kickstarter now.