Race for the Universe

Yeah, no doubt. I'm a big fan of that kind of thing. And that's why I was thinking of the multiple boards, because the sheer distance we're talking about (even with pure speculation about how big the universe might be and if there's even an end to it) makes it so that travel around the solar system would be on an incredibly smaller scale than travel through the galaxy, galaxy cluster and outer universe. I imagine there being some outposts or obscure planets in the outer universe section, where the racers would hook up with the final fuel or resources they need for that last leg of the trip... and even though those outpost planets are possibly billions of light years apart from each other, they would look to be at about the same scale on the board as the planets in our solar system.

Presumably, if everyone is traveling through the boards 1-2-3-4-3-2-1, then only 1 or 2 of the boards would be in play at any given time, unless a player is way ahead or behind. I'm trying to minimize the total space needed, so each board can be a decent size... I guess if someone is that far ahead or behind, there could be some kind of "pace lap" thing, to keep it within 2 boards.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too... something along those lines to help keep everybody within the same board or two.

The thing is, though... I'm not sure about the negative points thing, because I'm not crazy about the idea of VPs for a race game. To me, a race is a race; if you win the race, you should win the game. I can accept the winning condition in a race game like Jamaica because it's about pirates and they would probably be happier having grabbed more gold and treasure than from actually winning the race... But ideally, I'd rather keep this one as a more straightforward "1st place wins" kind of thing.

Perhaps, if that situation arises where someone would be on a 3rd board (2 boards behind the leader), they are given some kind of card that indicates a handicap (lose a turn, etc.), which they have to play at some point before ending the race. Each board could be broken down into certain "legs", so if you were two legs from finishing that board when another player got to the second board ahead of you, you would have to take two of those negative event cards.

Then again, I suppose that if VPs could make sense, thematically, then I could go for that. For example, if your race team develops more technology during the game that will end up benefiting mankind more once they return to Earth, then that would seem to be more of a long-term "victory" than having finished first. And maybe the more battles and predicaments you were in are worth something, because you'll have the best stories to sell to the media. Hmm yeah, that kind of thing could make it more interesting, whereby you can play the game a few different ways, to win the race, as a civ-builder of sorts, or as a space battle adventure game.