Build your own galaxies in Cosmic Factory

How are your galaxy building skills?

Oh, you haven’t built a galaxy recently?

Well, maybe it’s time you give it a try.

In Cosmic Factory, players race to build personal galaxies in ways that will score them the most points. The catch is that they must do so in under 1 minute!

Actually, there are other catches along the way as well. That’s because in each of the 5 rounds, there’s a bit of chaos thrown in by way of changing rules.

It’s a light and fun family game for up to 6 players that goes by very quickly — leaving you plenty of time to build more galaxies.

 

How to play Cosmic Factory

Cosmic Factory, by Gigamic, is played over the course of 5 rounds. In each round, players will draft 9 Galaxy tiles and then race against the clock to arrange them in a 3 x 3 grid to score the most points they can.

At the start of each round, a new Kaos card is revealed. The Kaos card presents a rule change that only applies for that round.

Then all players draw 9 Galaxy tiles from the bag. Each player chooses 3 tiles and places them face down in front of them. Then they pass the remaining 6 tiles to their neighboring player (left or right depending on the round).

From the 6 tiles they receive, each player chooses 3 tiles and again places them face down in front of them. The final 3 tiles are passed to their neighboring player and are placed face down (the receiving player can’t see them yet).

The sand timer is flipped and everyone has 1 minute to arrange their 9 tiles in a 3 x 3 grid — trying to create zones of the same color planets as well as connected lines of asteroids (small grey lines of circles).

Once the timer runs out, players tally the points for the constructed galaxy.

The points vary depending on the color of planets and for asteroid paths. All are printed on each player’s score track board.

• Green (vegetation) zones score 1 point for each zone with 3 to 5 planets, 3 points for each zone with 6 to 8 planets, and 5 points for each zone with 9 or more planets.
• Blue (ice) zones score 2 points for each zone with 2 to 4 planets, 4 points for each zone with 5 to 7 planets, and 6 points for each zone with 8 or more planets.
• Orange (desert) zones get 2 points for zones with 2 to 3 planets, 5 points for zones with 4 to 6 planets, and 7 points for zones with 7 or more planets.
• Asteroid paths score for the longest asteroid path that passes through the most tiles. A path that crosses through 4 to 5 tiles scores 1 point, through 6 to 8 tiles 2 points, and through all 9 tiles 4 points.

In addition, while the timer is still going and after a player has completed arranging their galaxy, they may grab a Zone Bonus token. Once taken, a player may not rearrange any tiles. If the player has the most planets in a zone of that color among all players, they score 3 bonus points in that color. If that player doesn’t have the most in a zone of that color, they lose 2 points in that color.

Some Kaos cards also grant bonus points to players for that round.

Players move their scoring token along their score track for each of the colors and asteroid paths they score points for. The color tokens match the planet colors and the star token is used to score points from asteroid paths.

After the 5th and final round, players determine their final score.

The points from the lowest colored score token are added to a player’s star token (asteroid path points). This combined score is their final score. The player with the highest final score wins!

 

Can the whole family enjoy Cosmic Factory?

Absolutely!

Cosmic Factory is a great game the whole family can enjoy playing together!

The recommended age on the game box says 10+, but that shouldn’t stop younger players from joining in the fun.

Yes, it may be harder for younger players to grasp some of the strategic choices about scoring their zones and asteroids and keeping all that in mind while arranging their tiles. But that doesn’t mean they won’t have fun putting tiles together to make colorful galaxies.

There are a number of things we love about Cosmic Factory.

We love the simultaneous play. There’s really no downtime in the game because everyone drafts tiles at the same time and arranges their galaxies at the same time. There isn’t any waiting for turns. You’re always actively engaged in the game.

We love the tile-laying nature of the game. We really enjoy games where you get to build things with tiles and arrange them in different ways every time you play.

We love the initial drafting each round. It’s fun to plan out which colored planets you hope to group together based on the tiles you have at your disposal. But there will also be 3 random tiles given to you that you haven’t had a hand in choosing. That mix of drafting and random draw is a great mix for light fun.

We love the various scoring for the different colors. The scoring is inversely proportional to the number of planets on the tiles. There are a ton of Green planets which make them easier to group together, but they don’t score as high as the Orange planets which there are less off. It’s a great balance.

We love the method of arriving at your final score. Players that just focus on one color aren’t going to do well. It’s important to look for a way to balance your scoring of each color because your final score will be based on your lowest scoring color. Which also means you also can’t forget about scoring well with asteroid paths. You’ll want to make long paths, but they also can divide zones. Fun things to balance.

We love the timer. It may add a little bit of anxiety to the game, but the race against the clock is perfect to keep Cosmic Factory a light game. Sure you could find the most optimal arrangement of tiles if you had more time. But it’s the race against the clock that keeps everyone on their toes. It also makes the game of only 5 rounds go by quickly.

We love the addition of the Kaos cards.There are 20 unique Kaos cards and you’ll only play with 5 each game.Not only does it add a twist to each round in a game, because there are so many Kaos cards included, every game will be different.

We love the risk / reward of grabbing bonus tokens when we think we have the most planets in a zone. Get it right and you boost your score nicely. Get it wrong and you’re heading in the opposite direction. It’s a nice addition to scoring.

And lastly, we love that 6 players can play! As a family of 6, this is just what we’re looking for. And because of the simultaneous play, the game last just as long with 2 as it does with 6. Awesome!

Are those enough reasons of why we enjoy Cosmic Factory as a great family board game?

I’m sure I could add more, but I think that’s enough to give you a good idea if it would be a good game for your family.

 

How does Cosmic Factory score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

If you haven’t guessed yet, Cosmic Factory scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter.

All the reasons we’ve outlined above are also reason why we’ll play one game right after another. With easy to understand rules and simultaneous play, games go by in a flash.

The easy set up also makes it super easy to play games back to back. Simply toss all the Galaxy tiles back in the bag (like you do every round anyway), reshuffle the Kaos card deck, reset your score track, and you’re ready to go at it again.

Cosmic Factory gets a hearty recommendation from our family!

We’d like to thank Gigamic for a review copy of Cosmic Factory.