Xia: Legends of a Drift System - Kickstarter Campaign.

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last week. I was sick with hand foot and mouth disease, so the blisters over my hands made it hard to write up any posts. Although it was good for one thing, I managed to re-watch all of Firefly (it didn't take that long as Fox canceled it after 14 episodes), which happens to be one of the best shows in the 'verse. I was prompted to do this after finding out that Xia: Legends of a Drift System's Kickstarter page was live. Despite what it may sound, this is not a racing game, this is a sci-fi which board game designer Cody Miller has been working on for nine years!

Xia: Legends of a Drift System 

The game board after set up

Xia: is described as a 3-4 player sandbox game. It was inspired by the idea of being a small time captain of a small starship (aka: Serenity) and making your way in the universe. Here is the blurb from Board Game Geek:

Xia: Legends of a Drift System is a 3-5 player sandbox style competitive space adventure. Each player starts as a lowly but hopeful captain of a small starship. 

Players fly their ships about the system, completing a variety of missions, exploring new sectors and battling other ships. Navigating hazardous environments, players choose to mine, salvage, or trade valuable cargo. Captains vie with each other for Titles, riches, and most importantly Fame.  

The most adaptive, risk taking, and creative players will excel. One captain will rise above the others, surpassing mortality by becoming Legend!

The aim of the game is to get the most fame points (FP) thus becoming the most famous ship captain. The sandbox style means there is multiple ways of doing this. You can be a trader  become a pirate  an explorer, a minor, a bounty hunter, or a combination.

Drift Systems

The game is set in a 'drift system' which is some kind of outer rim world which has skewed gravity fields making planetary orbits random. The drift system is the only one habitable by man and is called Xia.

The spaceships

A spaceship trading with a planet in Xia

The game comes with 15 spaceship miniatures 3 which are NPC's and 12 which you can buy and use in Xia. There are 3 tiers of ships and all the players start with a tier one ship. These all have names such as the Puddle Jumper. The ship has a certain number of spaces which you can outfit with technology such as engines, guns, missiles and shields. The spaces remaining are used for transporting cargo. All in all this looks like a fun component of the game, designing and upgrading your spaceship.

Here are the components of the game

The Rules and Final thoughts

I have flicked through the PDF rules which you can get from the Kickstarter website. Well to be honest I am not 100% convinced, maybe about 70%. Why so? I guess flying round space, simply mining astroids or trading resources seems a little unexciting to me, although combat seems neat but not a major part. The setting is kind of fun however and the art pretty good but not amazing. I love the idea of piloting my own starship like Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly. However in this game it seems that trading, mining etc. are just game mechanics and the theme may not quite overcome that. 

Well I am sceptical, so I won't invest in the Kickstarter. Maybe I will be better off Getting Firefly: the game when it is released. However I am keen to give the game a shot sometime and hopefully be convinced otherwise! 

One of the ships loaded up,
the orange objects are damage markers

Check out the Kickstarter website here. Photos taken from the Kickstarter site.