In this course we have been divided into groups and given the task to play three different board games. The assignment we have received is to analyze three games by finding its core system. By playing the game at least 3 times, we should get a better understanding how the game system works for each of these games. This week we have been playing Battlestar Galactica (The Board Game).

Battlestar Galactica is a board game where you cooperate with other players in order to win the game. However you can’t trust all players because some of them might be Cylons and their goal is to sabotage for the players, so that they lose. To play the game requires at least 3-6 players.

Best of Battlestar Galactica

Among the best things about the game where the build-up. When the game starts it´s pretty peaceful but further into the game it becomes more intense the more resources you loses. When we played we knew that at least one person was playing Cylon and that the person trying to sabotage. Because of that we could not trust anyone. This made it difficult to have control over crisis, because we only had a limited amount of cards to use. If you ran out of cards or already played all your good cards it became freely for Cylons to try sabotage as much as possible (Stab us in the back). So you wanted to save your cards to the right moment, the moment when you think Cylons strikes.

Worst of Battlestar Galactica

The worst part of the game is that it does not real matter if things are going well for the moment, because next second could everything change and you are close to losing. Since much of the game is random either by dice roll or which card you get from the pile, it has a big part of how the game will end. An example is when we played it and we had to roll a dice to either pass a crisis or lose resources. Since we only had one resource remaining it meant either pass crisis or the game is lost. We got one less resources and it brought us to the end. We had been playing for over 3 hours and we lost by rolling a dice…

The Core Game System

The most interesting system

The most interesting system in the game is the loyalty system. The games social interaction has a great effect on the loyalty system of the game. Since each player gets a loyalty card at the start of the game where you either become Human or Cylon. The player or players which becomes Cylons will try to sabotage and blame other players as Cylons without revealing themselves. It is also important for the Human players to figure out who is playing Cylon, so they can stop him/her. Even through you are playing as a Human it’s not safe to blame other players as Cylons, because it’s a risk that you will be pointed out as Cylon. This makes it interesting because all players need to work together to reveal a Cylon but it’s really difficult because you can’t trust anyone.

Target group

The main target group of the game would be both male and female people who are fans of the original Battlestar Galactica TV-series. I also think people who are interested in politics, sci-Fi and board games in general would play this game. The age group of this game should be around 15+ because it has a big complex system which I think would be too complicated for younger players too catch.

Summary