Wild Space
Wild Space Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components Overview
Components: 108 Crew cards (60 Specialists, 24 Emissaries, 18 Robots and 6 Captains) - 10 Planet tiles - 25 Spaceship tokens (5 per player) - 5 Veteran tokens (1 per player) - 1 Scorepad - 12 Hostile Planet cards for the solo mode - 1 rulebook.
In Wild Space, players are building their Crew to earn the most Credits by the end of the game. Throughout the game, they explore Planets to get new Crew cards and be allowed to put them into play in front of them. Each player starts with one Captain as the first member of their crew. The other types of Crew cards (Specialists, Robots and Emissaries) will be put into play during the game.
108 Crew cards
- 6 Captains (featuring a medal on their back)
- 60 Specialists
- 18 Robots
- 24 Emissaries
Specialists (with a blue background) form a major part of your Crew. All Specialists are Animals, allocated in 6 categories.
Each Specialist card shows an Animal icon.
Collecting Animals is the main way to be awarded Credits at the end of the game.
All Emissaries (with a red background) are Animals too. They entrust players with missions that are worth extra Credits at the end of the game if they are fulfilled.
Each Emissary card shows the Goal of the Mission.
Robots (with a green background) are powerful allies. They are not Animals, and the Credits that they grant at the end of the game are counted separately from your Animals collections.
Most of the Crew cards feature an Ability circle. This Ability can only be triggered when the player is putting the card into play. The Ability circle can come along with a blue Condition circle, indicating which prerequisite has to be met for the Ability circle to be allowed to be activated.
All Specialists and most of the Robots have an Occupation. Occupations are used on Ability and Condition circles. They are also useful for fulfilling some Emissaries missions. There are 6 different Occupations:
- Military
- Pilot
- Botanist
- Engineer
- Programer
- Scientist
At last, some Specialists and Robots have a Veteran status. Players recruiting these can advance their token on their Captain's Veterans track, and benefit from its abilities.
To get new Crew cards into their hand or be allowed to put them into play in front of them, players have to go and discover new Planets, and explore them. Each player has 5 Spaceships for the whole game. Each Spaceship is to be used twice: one first time for landing on a Planet tile, then a second time for exploring this Planet.
Planets are divided into two distinct Sectors, on the left and on the right of the tile. A player can have a Spaceship on each of the two Sectors of a Planet, but they are not allowed to have more than one Spaceship on a same Sector. Throughout the game, players discover different Planets, providing new opportunities. The farther away a planet is, the more Crew cards a player needs to have for being allowed to land on it.
Each Planet tile has a Left Sector and a Right Sector, and shows the required amount of Crew cards.
The gamebox also includes a scorepad for the endgame scoring, and a set of Hostile Planet cards for the Solo mode.
Setup
a. Place the 2 starting Planets (featuring a house icon), face up at the center of the table.
b, c, d. Randomly place, face down, one copy of each of the other Planets, ranked by ascending order: one "3" Planet (b), then one "6" Planet (c) and finally one "9" Planet (d).
e. Randomly deal one face up Captain card in front of each player. This is the first card of their Crew. Put the remaining Captain cards back into the box.
f. Each player picks a color and takes the 5 corresponding Spaceships tokens in front of them.
g. They also place their Veteran token beside their Captain card, on the left of the Veterans track.
h. Shuffle all the Crew cards into a single facedown draw pile at the center of the table, and reveal the 3 first cards to form a line beside it. This is the card Pool. Keep some space available next to the draw pile for placing the cards discarded throughout the game.
i. Each player draws 3 cards from the draw pile and keeps them in hand without revealing them: It is their starting hand.
Whoever most recently saw an Animal becomes the first player.
Game Flow
Starting with the First player and going clockwise, players take turns one after the other. On their turn, a player uses one of their Spaceships on one of the Planets available at the center of the table, then resolves the corresponding action. The game ends when all players have used each of their spaceships twice. Each player will then have taken 10 game turns. Whoever has earned the most Credits is the winner.
On a Player's Turn
On their turn, a player goes through two successive steps, in the following order:
- Play one Spaceship on a Planet
- Resolve the Planet's action
1. Play One Spaceship on a Planet
On their turn, the player can, either:
- A. Land a new Spaceship on a Planet, provided they still have at least one remaining available Spaceship to do so.
- B. Explore a Planet on which they already landed a Spaceship.
Both of these options will allow the player to either draw new Crew cards or put some into play in front of them, during the second step of their turn.
A. Land a new Spaceship
The player takes one available Spaceship in front of them and places it on a Planet, on the bottom side of the tile, on one of the two Sectors.
To be allowed to land on a Planet, the player must already have put into play in front of them at least as many cards as indicated on this Planet tile.
There is no such restriction on the two starting Planets (house icon) and all players can freely access these from the start of the game. The next ones respectively require 3, 6 and 9 Crew cards for being allowed to land on them.
Example: Amelie has 4 Crew cards in play. So, she only has access to the 3 first Planets.
A player can never land a Spaceship on a Sector in which they already have a Spaceship, whether it has just landed or it has already explored. It is however allowed to land a Spaceship on a Sector on which there is already another player's Spaceship.
Example: Amelie wants to land on the third Planet. As she already has a Spaceship on the left Sector, she can only land on the right Sector.
If a player has no available Spaceship left in front of them, the only remaining option that they have on their turn is to explore a Planet on which they already have a Spaceship.
B. Explore a Planet
The player selects one of their Spaceships currently laid on the bottom of Planet and slides it up, without changing Sector. A Spaceship which already explored its Sector can not be used anymore until the end of the game.
Important: once laid on one of a Planet's Sectors, a Spaceship can never be moved to another Sector or to another Planet.
Right after having landed a Spaceship or explored a Planet's Sector, the player takes the corresponding action.
2. Resolve the Planet's Action
By landing their Spaceships on Planets and exploring them, the player earns the right to perform two types of actions: draw or put cards into play. The action depends on the Sector on which the Spaceship has landed. All details abouts the icons can be found on the last page of this rulebook.
When they land a new Spaceship on a Planet, the player takes the action indicated on the corresponding Sector. If the player has the choice between several actions, they only resolve one of them.
Some actions feature a condition, on the bottom left of the Sector. The player has to fulfill this condition to be allowed to land a Spaceship on this Sector and take the corresponding action. When a Sector indicates more than one condition, the player can choose which one they want to fulfill.
Example: a Planet Sector can show 1 condition, 2 different actions, or 3 different conditions.
When a player slides a Spaceship up for exploring its Sector, they always have the two same options: either draw 3 cards or put 1 card into play. No condition is ever to be fulfilled in order to be allowed to explore a Planet.
Reminder: once a Spaceship has explored the Sector of the Planet on which it is, this Spaceship can not be used anymore until the end of the game.
Drawing cards
Whenever a player has to draw a card, they can either take it from the top of the draw pile, or from the Card Pool. As soon as a card is taken from the Pool, it is immediately replaced by a new card from the draw pile.
If the player has to draw more than one card, they decide for each of them if they want to take it from the Pool or from the top of the draw pile. Before drawing the next card, the player is allowed to consider which card they just took from the draw pile or which card replaces the one that they just took from the Pool.
There is no limit to the amount of cards that a player can have in hand.
Refresh the card Pool
At any moment during their turn, a player can decide to discard one card from their hand to refresh the card Pool. The three cards currently available in the Pool are then placed into the discard pile and three new cards are revealed to replace them. A player can refresh the Pool as many times as they want during their turn, as long as they can discard one card each time.
Example: Joachim has to draw 2 cards. As no card currently in the Pool interests him, he starts by taking one from the top of the draw pile. He then decides to refresh the Pool, by discarding a card from his hand to pay for it. He finally draws one of the 3 newly revealed cards in the Pool. This card immediately gets replaced by the top card of the draw pile.
Note: if the draw pile ever gets empty, shuffle all cards from the discard pile together to form a new draw pile.
Putting a card into play
When a player puts a card into play, they place it in front of them, with their Captain and their other Crew members. If the card played features an Ability circle, the player can immediately apply the depicted ability. A card's Ability can only be triggered at the moment on which it is being put into play, but triggering it is never mandatory. Some Ability circles are preceded by a Condition circle. If the condition is not met, the player can still put the card into play, but they can not trigger its Ability.
When an Ability leads to putting another card into play, the player can immediately trigger this new card's Ability. For that, they must fulfill any mentioned condition. This way it is possible to consecutively trigger several Abilities and be able to put several cards into play during a single turn, as long as each time, any condition linked to each Ability is fulfilled.
Example: Amelie puts a Botanist Monkey into play, which allows her to immediately play an engineer from her hand. She puts an Engineer Rhino into play.
Follow-up of the example: This Engineer Rhino allows her to put a new card into play if she first discards a card from her hand. She discards a card and uses this ability to put a Monkey emissary into play, which allows her to immediately draw a new card.
Veterans
Veterans are recognizable by a Medal icon appearing on the upper left area of the card. Each time a player puts a new Veteran card into play, they move their Veteran token one step forward to the right on their Captain's card Veterans track. They then apply the ability indicated on the square that they just reached. Most of the abilities allow either to draw cards or put cards into play, but each Captain can also provide Credits at the end of the game. If a player removes a Veteran from their Crew at any given moment, their Veteran token remains on the Square on which it is on the track.
Example: Joachim puts a Veteran Robot into play. He moves his Veteran token from one square on his Captain card and applies the ability indicated on the square he just reached: he immediately draws 2 cards.
End of Turn
Once a player has first played a Spaceship, then performed the Planet action and applied all abilities, their turn ends. They check how many Crew cards they have face up in play in front of them. If they have at least as many as the number indicated on a face down Planet, this Planet immediately gets flipped on its face up side. Do not forget to count the Captain among the Crew cards.
Reminder: even when a Planet has been revealed face up, a player is only allowed to land a Spaceship on it if they have at least as many Crew cards into play as indicated on this Planet.
Turn then proceeds to the next player.
End of Game
The game ends as soon as all players have used each of their Spaceships twice. Each of them will have taken 10 turns. You can then proceed to Credits count. Take the scorepad and count-up each player's Credits, as follows.
- Identical Animals: Within each given Species, the 3rd Animal and any further one each earn you 5 Credits. The two first animals are worth nothing.
- Different Animals: Each complete series of 6 different Animals in your Crew earns you 15 Credits.
- Emissaries: The Emissaries that you have in your Crew earn you Credits if you fulfilled the missions that they propose.
- Robots: Some Robots in your Crew earn you the Credits indicated on their card.
- Veteran token: Your Veteran token earns you Credits if it reached the corresponding square on your Captain card, or a further square.
Whoever has the highest total score wins the game. In case of a tie, the tied player with the least cards in front of them is the winner. If there is still a tie, tied players share Victory.
Example: Joachim ends the game with 57 Credits.
- 20 Credits for his series of identical Animals: 15 Credits for 5 Owls and 5 Credits for 3 Bears.
- 15 Credits or one series of Animals from all different Species.
- Each of his two Emissaries earns him 4 Credits, for a total of 8.
- His Robots earn him 8 Credits.
- His Captain earns him 6 Credits.
Solo Mode
In the solo mode, you are competing with the Smuggler, a virtual opponent handled by an "Artificial Intelligence". To win, you must end the game with more Credits than it.
Setup
Proceed with the usual setup as explained on page 4. Deal 1 Captain card to the Smuggler. Form a Draw pile with 5 Hostile Planets by randomly taking, considering their back, the cards indicated for the difficulty level that you want to play with (see below). Shuffle these 5 cards and reveal the two first cards, face up. Pick a color for the Smuggler and place the 5 corresponding Spaceships next to the Hostile Planet cards. Do not install a Veteran token for the Smuggler, as it will not use it during the game.
Difficulty level
Before starting the game, you choose how difficult to beat the Smuggler will be. The 12 Hostile Planet cards are ranked in 3 categories of ascending difficulty (category 1 < category 2 < category 3).
The difficulty level determines the amount of cards to be randomly picked from each category.
- Easy: 2 cards from category 1, 2 from category 2, 1 from category 3.
- Normal: 2 cards from category 1, 1 from category 2, 2 from category 3.
- Hard: 1 card from category 1, 2 from category 2, 2 from category 3.
Game Flow
The Smuggler is building a Crew that earns it Credits thanks to its collections of Animals and its Robots. The Hostile Planet cards used during the game indicate the additional credits that it will earn at the end of the game thanks to the Emissaries, Robots, Veterans and the Occupations of its Crew members. Randomly determine who between you and the Smuggler goes first. You and the Smuggler take successive turns until you both have played 10 turns. On your own turns, you play exactly as in a multiplayer game.
On Smuggler's turn
The Smuggler's actions are handled through the Hostile Planet cards that it uses instead of the Planet tiles. On Smuggler's turn, you have to play one of its Spaceships on one of the two currently revealed Hostile Planets. You have the choice between:
- Landing a new Spaceship on the bottom of an Hostile Planet on which there is still no Ship.
- Exploring an Hostile Planet on which the Smuggler already has a Spaceship, by sliding it to the top of the card.
You then immediately apply all the abilities indicated where you placed the Ship: on the bottom or on the top of the Hostile Planet. Each depicted square refers to the position of one of the Crew cards currently face up in the Pool.
Each Hostile Planet card shows: Credit bonuses at the end of the game (top), Exploration abilities (upper row), Landing abilities (lower row), and the position of the cards in the Pool.
The Smuggler basically only interacts with spots of the Pool, by discarding some cards there or by adding them to its Crew.
- Hand icon: Add the corresponding card from the Card Pool to the Smuggler's Crew.
- Red cross icon: Discard the corresponding card from the Card Pool.
Like in a normal game, each time that a card is taken from the Pool, it is immediately replaced by the top card of the draw pile. If two Abilities to be triggered target a same spot of the Pool, apply the leftmost one first, replace the card that was just removed, then apply the second, rightmost Ability.
Example: Amelie lands the Smuggler's Spaceship on one of the two available Hostile Planet cards. She discards the card currently placed in the middle spot of the Pool. She replaces it with a new card from the draw pile, then she adds this card to the Smuggler's Crew.
If you just slid a Smuggler's Spaceship on the upper side of the card, this card becomes unavailable. Put this Hostile Planet aside along with its Spaceship token, in such way that you can keep an eye on the bonuses that it will bring to the Smuggler. Then reveal a new Hostile Planet, if there is still any remaining.
Credit count
At the end of the game, you count your credits as normal. The Smuggler earns the credits linked to its collections of Animals, and the credits indicated on its Robots. It ignores all other informations showed in its Crew. Instead, it is granted extra Credits for each icon depicted on top of the 5 Hostile Planet cards used during this game, as follows:
- Emissary icon: Each Emissary in its Crew earns the Smuggler 1 extra Credit per corresponding icon.
- Robot icon: Each Robot in its Crew earns the Smuggler 1 extra Credit per corresponding icon.
- Veteran icon: Each Veteran in its Crew earns the Smuggler 1 extra Credit per corresponding icon.
- Occupation icon: Each card in its Crew matching the depicted Occupation earns the Smuggler 1 extra Credit.
You win the game if you end with more Credits than the Smuggler.
Icon Reference
Abilities
- Card icon with a number: Draw the indicated amount of cards.
- Blank card icon: Put any one card from your hand into play.
- Specialist / Robot / Emissary icon: Put a Specialist / Robot / Emissary card into play.
- Robot-and-Emissary icon: Either put a Robot or Emissary card into play.
- Occupation icon (Programer / Military / Botanist, etc.): Put a card matching the depicted Occupation into play.
- Veteran (medal) icon: Put a card that features a Veteran icon into play.
- Card with arrow icon: Draw a card from the Pool or from the draw pile and immediately put it into play.
Conditions
- Blank card crossed in red: Discard one card of your choice from your hand.
- Specialist / Robot / Emissary icon crossed in red: Discard one Specialist / Robot / Emissary card from your hand.
- Occupation icon crossed in red: Discard a card matching the depicted Occupation from your hand.
- Veteran icon crossed in red: Discard a Veteran card from your hand.
- Robot / Emissary icon with a green check: You need to already have at least one Robot/Emissary card in your Crew.
- Occupation icon with a green check: You need to already have at least one card matching the depicted Occupation in your Crew.
- Crew card with a large red cross: Remove one of the Crew cards that you have in play in front of you and put it in the discard pile.
Credit count
- Equals icon / 5: For the 3rd Animal and for each extra one of a same species.
- Not-equals icon / 15: Per series of 6 different Animals.
- Emissary, Robot and Veteran icons: Credits earned by Emissaries, Robots, and the Captain card.
Missions examples
- 5 / 3 Botanist: 5 Credits per series of 3 Botanist Occupation icons in your Crew.
- 2 / Owl + Military: 2 Credits for each pair of Owl and Military icons you have in play.
- + Programer = 5: 5 Credits if you have strictly more Programers in play than any other player.
Credits
Wild Space is a game designed by Joachim Thôme, illustrated by Amélie Guinet, published by Catch Up Games and distributed by Blackrock Games. Graphic design: Manoel Verdiel. Layout: Clément Milker. Proofreading: Camille Mathieu. January 2020, Catch Up Games.