The Star Trek [Deck Building Game] Rulebook is now available in the Rules Section. Check it out so you have the edge when you play the game for the first time. There are plenty of visuals in the rulebook so you also get to see some previews.
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Jeremy Clarke says:
June 23, 2011 at 2:52 PM (UTC -7)
Hey guys, great work! This manual certainly puts the one from Dominion to shame! I am so pumped to play your game that I just read the whole rulebook and it made me really excited. The two alternate versions make it sound even more awesome and I can’t way to try in vain to defeat the borg with my friends
Any plans to add expansions with other alternate decks? There are so many great episodes in TNG, I bet there are dozens that could be converted into a minigame the way the Klingon one was.
I am a bit of an info-design geek (WordPress developer by profession) so my notes about things that could be improved in the manual are pretty long. Hope it’s not offensive, I could never have gotten as far as you guys already have! These are just some things I think would make it even easier to understand the game if you don’t already know how to play:
* PDF art assets not high enough res. Zooming in on cards doesn’t make them readable on pretty much any of the pages. It seems like you expect readers of the PDF to be able to read the cards, but it’s almost impossible, even if I zoom in it’s too pixelized to be legible. Maybe this isn’t an issue in the printed version but it would be really helpful if the PDF let you read the cards in full.
* There should be an intro section to outline the essence of the game. As a completely new player, I need at least one general paragraph that uses all the keywords we will learn about in the following pages to describe the game as a whole. This would give context to all the details to follow. As it is I didn’t have a grasp of the overall game until I got to the Borg section of the manual and had read everything, and there was nowhere for me to go back and review.
* The last comment applies to the Borg and Klingon sections as well, it would be nice to have a brief overview sentence that summarizes the details of the variant in a general way so that the details are less cryptic.
* Game board illustration on pages 4-5 would be better without extra LCARS-style chrome in turquoise around the top and bottom. It’s already a complicated layout without extra noise that looks like its part of the information. Light grey background illustrations are nice for flavor but having things the same color as card slots is disorienting for no purpose. If nothing else the extra LCARS stuff should be grey like on pages 12-13 where it is clearly just for aesthetic and not informational purposes.
* The paragraphs at the top of pages 6-7 (space deck setup) are confusing because they seem to each relate to the section immediately below it (starships on left and other cards on right), but actually both paragraphs apply to the whole thing. Ideally rewrite the paragraphs so the first is mostly about starships and the second is mostly about the other cards. Really you could just remove the first paragraph and have only the second one. There is also some empty space on that page to re-organize things to have a longer single paragraph.
* On page 13 the illustration of the bridge seems like a waste of space, especially since it was already shown on page 3. Instead, this would be a perfect spot for a “turn overview” reference list that has all the steps laid out in a clear way that you could quickly look to each turn while you get used to playing the game and the various turn phases.
* Page 17 first sentence: “If this Events caused the Battle” is probably a typo, should be ‘event’ instead of ‘events’. The sentence should probably be rewritten for clarity.
* Page 18 final paragraph has typos: “… 3 searches per turn,although more can begained by effects”. Need a space after the comma and to split up ‘be’ and ‘gained’.
* Page 25 typo: “That XP can be spend for other things as usual”. ‘spend’ should be ‘spent’.
Thanks for letting us preview the rules, hope it’s not too late to fix some of those easy issues and that you can incorporate some of the bigger ideas too
Alex Bykov says:
June 23, 2011 at 9:41 PM (UTC -7)
Thanks for your great feedback and we hope you enjoy the game. We appreciate all comments and do read them.
The back of each Starter ship will actually also feature a brief description of the rules for that particular scenario and it’s rules.
Luis says:
June 27, 2011 at 11:54 PM (UTC -7)
I cannot wait until this game comes out. I am a huge fan of star trek. I really like the rules. can’t wait to try out the klingon mini game and the Borg co-op.
Alex Bykov says:
June 28, 2011 at 6:43 AM (UTC -7)
Glad to hear it Luis,
I hope you enjoy the game as much as we enjoyed making it.