Wild Space Game Review & Themed Dinner

Wild Space
Designer: Pandasaurus Games
Players: 1-5
Playtime: 30 minutes
Ages: 10+

Wild Space is a fast-paced, exploration-based board game where players command a spaceship to explore a newly discovered galaxy. Your goal is to recruit the best crew of Specialists, Robots, and Emissaries, and earn the most credits by the end of the game. The game features 108 crew cards, 10 planet tiles, 25 spaceship tokens, 5 veteran tokens, and 12 hostile planet cards for solo mode.

Setup

Start with two face-up starting planets in the center, adding three random face-down planets. Players are dealt one Captain Card and five spaceship tokens in their chosen color, plus a Veteran token. Crew cards (Specialists, Robots, and Emissaries) are shuffled, and three are revealed for the shared pool. Each player begins with three crew cards in hand. The game starts with the player who most recently saw an animal (an amusing rule that can get tricky with pets nearby!).

Gameplay

On a player’s turn, they can:

• Land on a planet (gain benefits from the planet)
• Explore a planet (reveal a new planet by meeting crew member requirements)

Each player has five spaceships and the game concludes after ten turns. To win, players need to focus on gathering crew members and forming optimal card combos. Landing on and exploring planets unlocks actions such as drawing or discarding cards, and crew members help by creating synergies based on job roles or species. Players earn credits through strategic crew combinations and efficient use of the planets’ abilities.

Objective

Players aim to build the best crew possible and earn the most credits by the end of the game, maximizing points through card interactions and planet exploration.

Final Thoughts

The strategy element in Wild Space shines through card drafting and the interaction between crew members. Watching how card synergies unfold is deeply satisfying, and keeping an eye on your opponents adds a fun competitive edge. The game moves quickly once you’re familiar with the mechanics, and the art style, especially the charming animals like the owls, is delightful. The solo mode also adds great replayability for those who want a single-player challenge.

Wild Space is an excellent choice for anyone who enjoys medium-weight strategy games with a fun exploration theme. Order your copy of Wild Space by CLICKING HERE

The Dinner: Wild Space and Nine Excellent Pizzas (or 3, but who’s counting?)

By Variant Izzie

The Food

With the theme being space exploration, we continued flexing our theming chops by going with an oldie but goodie: My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas! Pluto will forever be a planet, fight me. So for our main dish this night J and Berry shared a pie made with a pizza stone and I opted to do a personal cast-iron pan. As the resident dairy-free queen (NOT by choice, mind you) I felt it was easiest to do. 

For our app we went with homemade “flying saucer” garlic knots, using one my homemade pizza dough recipe (the rest went to my own meal!). 

Lastly for dessert, Variant Berry had the solid idea to go with freeze dried candies – which, of course, is exactly what astronauts survive off of in space. (That’s science, baby!)

The Cocktail

Continuing with the space theme, I went with a recipe from another mixologist, the Deep Space from Cointreau. I’ve been using any excuse I can to throw edible glitter into our drinks, and this was a great opportunity to do so. Obviously all nebulas are just glitter in the sky. 

I don’t have a good black food coloring option just yet, so I ended up going with a dark blue instead. As fun as it looks, the real magic of this cocktail is the tase from the earl grey. It was my first time using tea as a mixer and I’m looking forward to incorporating more into future drinks. 

It came out delicious and is a cocktail I would highly recommend to anybody looking to have something different and fun. The glitter and coloring is optional if you’re just looking for the drink, but they definitely add to the visual vibe!

→ Still hungry? Check out more of our themed dinner & game nights!

Recipe

• 1.5 oz Cointreau
• 0.5 oz brewed Earl Grey tea
• 0.5 oz fresh lemon juice
• 2 dashes aromatic bitters
• 2 drops black food coloring
• 1 pinch black cocktail shimmer dust

1. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice
2. Add all the ingredients to your shaker
3. Shake vigorously for 20 seconds, until shaker is frosty and cold
4. Pour over a strainer into your glass
5. Garnish with lemon wedge, optional

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