Matthew BaileyHaving had an adventurous morning browsing Amazon.co.jp for unusual Japanese import games, Jack and I went to our local board game cafe, Unplug & Play (https://www.unplugandplay.cafe/), to enjoy a few games. The first one on our list was…
Game 11 of the “Bailey Family Summer 2023 Board Game Bonanza” is “Wormholes,” played by myself and Jack (8.).
“Wormholes” is a kind of route management, real-time delivery game that plays something like a randomly generated “Ticket to Ride,” where you have to manually travel your routes to deliver passengers.
The game starts with you laying out the board, and randomly placing tiles in one of the suggested configurations. These tiles can be rotated in multiple ways, meaning that every time you play, the map will be totally different.
Each player takes a spaceship, a set of Wormhole tokens in order, as well as three energy tokens. Similar to “Ticket to Ride,” you then take a number of destination cards that show destinations where your passengers need to be dropped off.
The general idea is to take your passengers around the Galaxy to their destination planets, bearing in mind you can only ever hold four passengers at once. You can also leave passengers and pick up new ones at Planets. This is an important mechanic because left passengers sit at the side and can be picked up by another player, meaning that a far away planet you are not focusing on could all of a sudden end up with another player bagging passengers for the same planet in one trip.
On your turn, you can essentially move three spaces using your energy, but obviously, this is not going to get you far around the Galaxy. Therefore, by placing Wormhole tokens, you can swiftly teleport your way around the map. You have ten Wormhole tokens numbered one to five, and they must be placed in order, meaning that the first Wormhole you place will be number one, and the second one will be the other number one that will link up to this Wormhole. As the game goes on, you end up with a network of Gates around the map that you can quickly use to deliver passengers to their destinations. Another key mechanic is that you can use another player’s Wormhole, but they gain one victory point through you doing so. While this did not come into play much in the two-player game we played, I can definitely see that this would be key to victory in a game with a larger player count.
The map has two sides, some with more complexities than others, and the game actually recommends that you mix and match, having a combination of complex and less complex tiles. Some of the features on the map include the nebula, which allows you to fast-track across a number of spaces, as well as wild wormholes and black holes.
Another key way of gaining victory points is by being the person to place a wormhole next to a particular planet. Every time a planet is “wormholed” (a new word I have invented), one of these points tokens is taken, and when they run out, this triggers the last three turns of the game. However, this mechanic is actually where my biggest criticism of the game lies. As soon as you have finally built up a decent network of wormholes, the end game triggers, and you don’t really get a chance to make the best use of them. Next time I play this, I will almost certainly suggest a house rule to get a few more turns at the end of the game to make better use of the Wormhole network that we have created.
Production values are really nice; all of the cardboard pieces are of decent thickness and fit together well. The wooden Wormhole tokens are a nice touch, and the spaceship meeples are fine. However, I feel that the artwork is a little bit weak, and I wish they had gone for a more cartoony style, similar to the style of “Galaxy Trucker” or “Starship Captains”. Of course, this is a personal preference and you might like the more “realistic/minimalist” look and feel.
Both of us really enjoyed playing this game, and it was the one game that we played at the shop that I definitely intend to purchase. Apart from the fact that the game ended a little too soon, it all works really well, and it epitomises the “simple to learn for kids but with enough complexity for older players” that this kind of game screams. While Toby(5) was not with us, he definitely would have been able to play this, and I reckon you could play this with a keen/competent five-year-old.
I am not normally a fan of expansions (even though I buy them regularly), but this game really is calling out for some cool expansions.
You can normally find “Wormholes” online for around £35-ish, but I think this is a fair price for a really good game that fits nicely into that “gateway to more complicated” niche filled by games like “Ticket to Ride” and “Catan.”
The randomly generated Galaxy is key and ensures that you cannot simply memorize the best placements for wormholes in future games. I would definitely recommend this if it’s a game that you think you would like, and it is definitely going to be added to our collection.
