SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

On your turn you take one main action (launch a probe, scan a star system, analyze data, develop equipment, or play a project card) plus any number of free actions, most of which are spent by discarding cards from your hand of multi-use cards for their top-left ability. The defining tactile gesture is sliding a probe along the orbital tracks toward a target planet whose position has been pre-shifted by rotating the inner, middle, or outer disc of the modular solar system board. Cards do triple duty as actions, money, and end-game scoring, so each card pickup is a small triage decision before it ever hits the table.

The game runs five rounds. Each round, players take turns clockwise (skipping anyone who has passed) spending income and cards on a single main action plus chained free actions, until everyone passes. Probes generate landings and orbital scans; telescopes pull in data tokens that must be analyzed back on Earth; completing all three trace types (scan + landing + data) on a given alien species triggers a discovery, which flips that alien's hidden board and seeds new rules, cards, and scoring tokens into the rest of the game. Between rounds, the solar-system discs rotate, repositioning planets so previously parked probes drift toward or away from targets. After round 5 you score area-majority on alien tracks, hand-played objective cards, and end-game bonuses; highest total wins.

The dominant tradeoff is short tempo (cash a card now for an immediate scan) versus long tempo (hold the card for its end-game scoring face or its objective tag). Layered on top is spatial timing: orbital geometry rewards players who launch a probe on round 2 anticipating where Mars will be on round 4, so misreading the disc rotation costs whole turns. The 200+ unique cards mean the option space at a typical turn is wide (often 5-10 plausible main actions plus a half-dozen free-action card plays), and the appearance of an alien discovery mid-game can suddenly invalidate a build that ignored that species's track. Good moves are hard to identify because every card is also a currency, so 'is this card worth more as money, action, or VP?' has no stable answer.

Strongest skills: forward planning (chaining a probe launch through two disc rotations to land exactly when a moon is in range) and card-economy literacy (reading a hand of 6-8 multi-use cards and finding the play that uses each card on its strongest face). Secondary: opponent reading on the alien-track area majority - knowing when to contest a species versus when to let it go and pivot to a different end-game objective. Almost no memory load thanks to open information, but heavy mental arithmetic for the income/conversion chains. The game punishes players who think one turn at a time and rewards those who already know what their round-5 board will look like.

Run a real space agency. Launch probes, point telescopes at exoplanets, analyze the signals back home, and be the team that finally proves we are not alone.

Sci-fi minimalist with a NASA-press-kit palette: deep blacks, clean whites, technical iconography, real-mission iconography on cards (Voyager, ISS, JWST, Perseverance). Card art treats actual hardware photographs and diagrams with a documentary reverence rather than pulp-sci-fi flair - the look is closer to a Planetary Society annual report than to a Star Wars novel.