Four Planets

Which home planet will become the new center of the universe? It's high time to settle this in a competition! In the duel game Four Planets, two captains set off into space with their spaceships to recruit the most capable minds in the galaxy to advance their own home planet. Round after round, four alien planets are visited – but only the first to arrive gets the choice. Who specializes in technology, economics, or knowledge? Who prefers special equipment or botany? Four Planets is a tactical game with a special card-selection mechanism, tricky decisions, and great game depth. Each round, every planet offers a pair of specialists available for drafting. Players take turns sending out one or more connected rockets to show their interest in a specific planet, while not revealing which of the two specialists they are willing to pick up later. Once all rockets have been sent, the player who claimed a planet first or who sent more connected rockets (traveling faster) may choose a specialist from the planet, while the other player takes what is left. Players then decide how to play their collected cards as some specialists require discarding other cards from hand. By combining symbols on their played cards, players develop certain abilities such as gaining more rockets or performing research of secret scoring bonuses.