It’s been a long time since the first Crossroads game — Dead of Winter — was released. Since then, this choose your own adventure style system has been through a number of iterations, with settings that feature living toys, anamorphic animals and quite a few other diverse settings. In Wandering Galaxy, up to six players control a diverse crew of alien creatures as they explore the far reaches of the titular galaxy, but not everything goes their way and combat, puzzle solving and exploration are all key facets of the experience.
As with most other recent Crossroads games, Wandering Galaxy is driven by both a web based application and a location book. It is possible to buy a separate adventure book that replaces the app, but to be honest I like the way the app helps with certain aspects of setup and rules management, and in particular I enjoy some of the spoken voice acting. It’s not stellar in its delivery, but it certainly does a better job than I would, personally, over such a large amount of text.
In addition to the location book, Wandering Galaxy has quite a lot of physical components that ensure this is more of a physical experience than a digital one. Yes, the app (assuming you don’t buy the extra book) is critical to gameplay, but there’s a lot to do on the table and that will very likely take up the majority of your focus.
Other components include a character sheet for each player and one for the ship that the players will obtain relatively early in the game. There are also ship stations for security, science, cargo and a few others, each of which must be assigned to a player at the beginning of your session. I’ll admit that because I play most of my games with our kids, I end up with quite a lot of admin as a result of this — simply because you can’t rely on kids to manage these stations as the game expects you to.
Nonetheless, Wandering Galaxy isn’t particularly complex once you get into it. In most cases each player will be responsible for their character (chosen from six alien races) and (on average) about two of the ship stations. This means that each person will only need to concentrate on 2-3 relatively simple tasks which occur at times that are easy enough to remember and will generally be prompted by the game.
In terms of gameplay, the location book is central and players will use it to decide what they want to do each round. In general, about half of the available spaces at any location can be used by only one player, whilst others can be used by any number of players. It can be a struggle to decide which one you want to use, so the app has a handy timer that you can use to chivvy people along. We don’t use that when it’s just me and the kids, but with six adults playing, I probably would.
In any case, once actions have been decided, they need to be resolved. Players take turns doing this, mostly just resolving whatever is shown on the action space — such as shopping, interacting with one of the dashboards, or possibly taking or spending tokens depending on what might be happening. There are some exceptions that require players to refer to an entry in the app (or the book) and these make for the most interesting parts of the experience.
Typically leading to an encounter such as a fight or a complex conversation, these moments give Wandering Galaxy its personality. Mostly resulting in a “test” of some sort, encounters require the active player to (usually) draw three cards to assess what symbols they get, which are then compared to the requirements of the test. Items and wild tokens can be used to affect the result, and in some cases, a companion can add their own skills to help support the active player.
In most cases, the outcome will vary depending on whether you were successful, or even how well you did (ie a critical success or failure). Sometimes, encounters like this will spin the story off in very different directions, whilst on other occasions the outcome will be less impactful. In most cases, the tests affect the dashboards in some way, and so there’s a tangible link between what happens in the app, what happens on the location board and what happens to the ship (on which everyone lives).
The ultimate objective of Wandering Galaxy is to obtain seven wealth. You’ll do this, over several sessions, by taking on and completing jobs, occasionally by tracking down specific storylines and very, very occasionally, just by getting lucky on a particular thread. This gives Wandering Galaxy the feel that I think veteran designer Jerry Hawthorne wanted it to have — which is to say that it feels a bit like a Firefly-style space adventure.
I’ve tried not to give away any spoilers in either the pictures here or what I’ve written, but Wandering Galaxy has a fairly good story. It’s well written without being too high brow, and it’s fun for children and adults to work through together — with the adults working through some of the more complex narrative sections and the kids enjoying the general setting and the more bombastic and straightforward sections.
I like a Crossroads system game as much as anyone, but I’d also say that I am not a massive sci-fi fan and so Wandering Galaxy wouldn’t be my first choice for a setting. That said, I like the dashboards here, and the designers really have done a good job with the way that Wandering Galaxy feels and plays. Taking responsibility for a critical ship system is fun and interesting, whilst using your own personal influence to solve puzzles and win fights is just as much fun, but in a very different mechanical way.
Overall then, I’d say Wandering Galaxy is a very engaging, very enjoyable experience that is perhaps just a bit more daunting than it actually should be. It feels a lot to get to grips with at first, but is actually quite light, and whilst it does demand time to complete, a save system (for both physical and virtual components) works really well. Wandering Galaxy is pretty unique when compared to games outside the Crossroads system, and if the idea of a feature rich, app-driven choose your own adventure in space appeals to you, then I think you’ll have a lot of fun with it.
Wandering Galaxy is available now from Amazon, or through other online retailers.
