Star Trek Panic
Overview
In Star Trek Panic, players take on the roles of various crew members from the classic Star Trek series like Kirk, Spock and Scotty. With their unique abilities they’ll work together to complete a series of missions while fending off a continuous onslaught of enemy ships and space anomalies.
Gameplay
Your group of players makes up the main crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Each player chooses one of the seven crew members, each with it’s own unique ability. Players will take turns fixing the ship and/or its shields, maneuvering the ship itself, attacking oncoming enemy ships that move closer each turn, and playing cards towards the current mission objective.
To win a complete game of Star Trek Panic your team must complete 5 missions and then clear the board of any left over enemies. Each mission has its mission parameters (unique rules and the number of turns your team must complete it in), mission objective (certain cards that must be played towards the mission, certain maneuvers you must perform and/or certain ships that you must destroy), and reward (drawing cards, repairing your ship, etc).
The tricky part of the game is the constant onslaught of enemy ships that attack you each turn. Two new threat tokens are drawn after each turn which can be enemy ships, space anomalies (like comets), or events that happen immediately. It’s important to balance your actions between reaching your mission objective as well as taking care of the current threats on the board.
Components
The designers of Star Trek Panic really outdid themselves with the components that make up the 3D ship, its shields, and the damage it takes. Each piece does an amazing job of showing you the current condition of your ship. When your shield is damaged you place a damage token right on your shields. When your shield is down you remove it from the board. When your ship takes damage there are damage tokens that fit right on the spot where you’ve been hit, and if part of your hull is destroyed there are special tokens that fit over the different parts of the ship that can be destroyed. All of this leads to some epic visuals and really helps you get into the theme of the game.
Who would enjoy this game?
Final Thoughts
If you’ve had the opportunity to play Castle Panic, the game that Star Trek Panic and others have been based off of, you’ll find Star Trek Panic to be very familiar yet very unique. The ability to maneuver the U.S.S. Enterprise through space offers an extra level of strategy and fun. If you enjoyed Castle Panic and you also like sci-fi and Star Trek, this game is a must have!
If you enjoy games where your group plays as a team, Star Trek Panic is definitely a game to consider adding to your collection. Its theme resonates with a wide age range, its mechanics are fun and easy to learn and teach, and the components for the ship pull you into the world of space exploration and combat in the best ways possible.
User Reviews (2)
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Overview
Star Trek Panic is a tower defense game in space. It is the Castle Panic game that adds objectives and scenarios that hamper your efforts. Your castle is the star ship enterprise, your characters are from the original series, and the oncoming orcs are enemy starships. It is more of a marathon as you attempt to complete multiple missions without being able to heal up between them. You can adjust the difficulty if needed so don’t worry too much about it.
Gameplay
Players select or are assigned different crew that have special abilities before you start. Your ship starts all shiny with full shields on all 6 sides. You start with a random mission and several advancing threats coming from all sides.
Each turn you can trade a card, maneuver the ship, and play cards. Trading a card might be best for the immediate turn or you may be setting up a teammate to be able to do something on their turn by combining cards or being in position to shoot at threats. Maneuvering the ship involves rotating or moving the ship forward. When the ship advances, objects in the two front sectors move closer. Ships on the sides or behind stay where they are – basically keeping speed with the Enterprise. Playing cards allows you to shoot at your enemies, repair damage, or have other effects. At the end of each turn, threats advance, attack, and new threats are added. When I say threats, I really mean Klingon, Tholian, and Romulan Starships. They will shoot, disrupt your ability to maneuver, and board your ship.
Missions are things to accomplish on top of defending yourself from a constant flow of enemies. Mission scenarios will adjust the rules while they are in play and give you a goal to complete. Most missions will give you a number of turns in which to complete them. Successfully completing 5 missions is the goal for a basic game. It is too hard, decrease the number. As you get better, try to complete 10 missions.
What I liked
1- Since it is a coop, working together to figure out the most efficient way to address the threats and complete the missions is interesting. We are often trying to plan 2-3 turns out as we use our abilities, cards, and trades.
2- The theme comes through as you are taking damage, repairing the shields and ship, and utilizing crew abilities.
3- We always blow up the ship.
What I didn’t like
– Lack of variety in the missions. It would be nice to have more missions so you are not seeing so many of the same ones every game.
– Some missions set parameters that are very hard. The ship will take a lot of damage while we are hampered for the length of those missions.
– I wish that repairing would be slightly easier
Conclusion
The best part of this game is where your ship blows up. This is in keeping with many of the movies–they like to destroy their beloved starships. The damage and destroyed sections markers that you put on the ship is fun to see. It sets the visual of how bad things are. When we complete our last mission (if we survive that long), we don’t stop the game and celebrate. The ship is burning, there are hull breeches, and if you have shields, there is damage on them. We continue until the ship blows up. It is the best part.
Okay … that’s a little cheesy, but if you’re a fan of the original 60s TV show, then you’ll love, nay adore the artwork in this themed version of Castle Panic. Castle Panic is a great game, so adding Star Trek elements, what could go wrong ?
In the couple of playthroughs that we did, Star Trek Panic is a fun, strategic co-operative game in which you defend the Enterprise from enemy ships in the various sections, much like Castle Panic. However, the one major difference is the Enterprise (middle piece) can be moved and fire. This makes sense, but also changes things quite a bit. I’m still not sure how I feel about this mechanic; time will tell.
Anyway, the rest of the game mechanics are easy to teach to new people, so if you’ve got some Star Trek fans in your group of friends, this would be an excellent gateway game. So, if you love co-operative games, this is a good one to add to your collection.