Roll for the Galaxy Review

"Roll for the Galaxy is a 2014 dice-based tableau/engine-building game. Released seven years after what many in the hobby now consider a modern classic in the form of Race for the Galaxy, Roll had a lot to live up to. Was Roll for the Galaxy able to strike its own path forward and do enough to really differentiate itself in the minds of players, or is it a game unfortunately stuck in the shadow of its predecessor?"

"Gameplay Overview: Roll for the Galaxy is played over an indeterminate number of rounds and sees players building their tableaus using different dice. Each round is played in five phases, but only the ones chosen by the players are performed. In Roll for the Galaxy, all actions are simultaneously performed, starting with players rolling their dice behind hidden screens and then placing those dice under corresponding symbols to organize them into each of the five different actions."

"Each player then takes any one of those dice and places it on their action selection board, representing the action they wish to occur this round. All players reveal their selections, and each action chosen by a player will then be performed during the round. The number of dice each player has under each action is how many times they are allowed to perform said action, and if a player has no dice under an action, then they cannot perform it."

Roll for the Galaxy uses custom dice to drive tableau and engine-building mechanics across an indeterminate number of rounds. Each round consists of five possible phases, but only the phases chosen by players are executed, and all actions resolve simultaneously. Players roll dice behind screens, assign dice to action symbols, and place a die on an action selection board to trigger that action for the round. The number of dice under an action determines how many times that action can be performed. Actions enable exploration, development, settling, production, and shipping to build planets and technologies, with the game ending when a player builds twelve tiles and scoring determined by VP chips.

Read at Board Game Quest