bevroren

In Impossible Machine, you have a hand of cards that are all Rube Goldberg-esque parts of the machine. Each player has his own color coded deck. There are five types of energy and three types of cards. The types of force are Electricity (batteries powering fans and the like), mechanical (gears), Upward force, downward force, and rightword force. Each card has a force-symbol on the left side and the right side, and the symbols rarely match. To play a card, the card on its left must have an energy symbol on its right side that matches the symbol on your card’s left side. You can play up to two cards a turn. You may also place cards in the middle of the machine, as long as the energy symbols on the cards to your card(s) left and right match up.

Splitter cards have two energy symbols on their left side, and allow people to place cards above and below the split. When someone plays an end card, the machine starts. At the end of a player’s turn three of the machine cards are flipped over. When all of the machine cards are flipped, the game ends and the players count up each card from their color-coded deck that was in the machine. The player with the most cards wins.

Thoughts on the game:
While it is an interesting concept, I don’t recommend it. The number of energy types and number of cards in your deck means that you probably won’t play anything except at the end of the machine and turns where you can’t do anything are common. While there is a discard mechanic, you use it at the end of your turn so it doesn’t help you until next turn.

I don’t recommend this game.

I have played this game half a dozen times. Each game was fun, interesting, and different. I’d suggest avoiding the Borg scenario, though. It can be very irritating at times, and requires truly epic amounts of coordination to be successful. I haven’t played the Klingon variant yet, though I would like to give it a shot.

Strategy tips:
Use all of your searches every round. Getting rid of cards that your opponents want is almost as useful as finding cards that you need.

There is a changeover point mid game when you no longer need XP to get cards, and instead should just focus on completing missions and defeating starships.

Defeating starships via diplomacy is far, far better than defeating them in combat. Crew is almost always better at diplomacy than combat, and cards that make you better at combat rarely do anything outside of combat.

I look forward to playing it again!