Empty Space is a set collection card game about exploring the vastness of space and, ultimately, landing a rocket on an exoplanet.
It is currently live on Kickstarter. The campaign is asking for less than $2,000 US. That is a very modest goal, and one that they should meet. This is a very cool game.
Empty Space doesn’t have a board. Instead, you deal out an array of cards from the deck in whatever shape you want. It is best to start with a 4 x 6 grid with 4 exoplanet cards on one side, but you (or your kids!) can get wild with it and create all kinds of cool shapes.
On their turn, each player has a choice to either research or explore.
- Researching consists of drawing cards from a deck blindly or choosing from a pair of revealed cards (similarly to Ticket to Ride).
- Exploring consists of attempting to move your probe or rocket onto and across the various cards that on the array you created at the beginning of the game.
You’re trying to do a number of things by choosing between those steps and you need to balance them carefully.
- All of the cards in the array start face down, with the exception of a few that are chosen at the beginning of the game. Players discard non-matched pairs of cards to peek at the cards or flip them over.
- Building a probe for exploration and a rocket to eventually fly to the exoplanet you discovered requires discarding sets of four matching colored cards.
- You can “shape the universe” and block your opponent or help yourself by discarding three matched cards. This is, in my opinion, one of the hardest decisions you’ll make as a player. You really have to be careful messing with your opponents because it can bit you in the end by making your own path more complicated.
Our whole family enjoyed Empty Space for different reasons. My oldest enjoyed the map variety and has suggested a whole bunch of differently shaped arrays. My youngest likes the ease of exploration (and messing with her brothers by putting black holes in their path). I just like a simple game that all of us can play together without any real difficulty.
Our friends at the Stay at Home Gamersgot their hands on Empty Space as well! I was able to watch their family of four play the game on a live stream. Their experience confirmed my thoughts. Their kids loved the experience and were chattering the whole time.
I love how easy it is to modify the difficulty of Empty Space. We can make it a little easier when playing with the kids and increase the difficulty when playing with only adults.
Darcy – Stay at Home Gamers
I agree with Darcy on this one. One of Empty Space’s strengths is that is plays well among different age groups. Younger kids can play it together and enjoy it without much intervention from parents or older siblings. Families with mixed skill levels can enjoy it as well.
The campaign will be live on Kickstarter for a little while longer and is definitely worth a look. Head on over!
What do you think? Sound off in the comments and let us know your thoughts!
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Guest Writer 
Linda Wrobel
Hi Stephen, we are glad you think this is a cool game and we love your well written preview. We are now funded and want to unlock some stretch goals this weekend and couldn’t have done it without amazing people like yourself and all the free time you spend on your passion!
Awesome Peter! Best of luck with the rest of the campaign!