Race for the Galaxy

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Ratings

Age

9+

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Languages

English

Latest Version 1.09.2

Sun Oct 21 2018

Race 2nd Edition updates

- More color-blind friendly

- Balance adjustments to 5 base game cards

Performance and stability improvements

1.09.1 Fixes an issue with tapping buttons near the screen edge on iOS 11 or above

1.09.2 Fixes and issue with Merchant Guild scoring

Race for the Galaxy is a strategy board game where players advance their galactic empires by playing cards to build technological developments or settle planets. The game uses a unique phase-selection mechanic where players secretly choose one of seven phases; only chosen phases occur, and the player who chose a phase receives a special bonus. From military conquests to trade-heavy economies, the game offers a vast array of strategic paths to victory, all brought to life with advanced AI and seamless online multiplayer.

Dinsun Expert Review

Our Expert Score

95/100

Race for the Galaxy on mobile is a triumph of digital board game adaptation. For the uninitiated, the learning curve can be steep due to the iconic iconography, but once it clicks, you're looking at one of the deepest strategy games in the App Store. The core mechanic of simultaneous phase selection creates a brilliant psychological layer: you aren't just building your own engine; you're trying to predict which phases your opponents will choose so you can 'leech' off their actions while advancing your own agenda.

The AI in this version is legitimately impressive, powered by a neural network that provides a meaningful challenge even for veteran players. The interface is clean, and the second-edition updates have made the cards much more readable on smaller screens. Whether you are rushing a military conquest or building a massive trade empire, every card choice feels impactful. It is a snappy, fast-paced experience that captures the 'just one more game' essence of the tabletop original perfectly.

Dinsun reviewed on: Sun Feb 25 2024

Features

2–4 player network multiplayer

Advanced neural network AI for solo play

Five starting worlds and ninety settlement cards

Free 'New Worlds' promo pack included

Expansion packs available via IAP

Tips & Walkthrough

Mastering Iconography

Focus on learning the symbols for 'Settle', 'Develop', and 'Produce'. The key to winning is choosing phases that benefit you significantly more than your opponents, or anticipating their moves to get a free action during their chosen phase.

Gameplays

Phase Selection Mechanics

Each turn, players choose one of seven actions: Explore (+1 or +5), Develop, Settle, Consume (Trade or 2x VPs), or Produce. Efficiently timing these phases while managing your hand of cards—which also serve as your currency—is the heart of the game.

Screenshot

Q&A

Yes, you can play multiplayer matches against players on different devices using a Temple Gates account.

Ratings & Reviews

Awesome port except for the scoring

Fri May 18 2018 ainyakitty

I love the board game and was thrilled to find the app was a great port to the mobile platform. I can never get my group to play it anymore so I love all the AI options. I would LOVE to give this app 5 stars but I feel it needs 2 things that were brought up during your beta last year but never addressed. 1) there really needs a scoring breakdown on the end screen. Knowing the final score doesn’t help if it’s not explained out. the app would make a great learning tool to get better but not if we can’t figure out where all the points come from. And 2) if after the game is over it would be nice to be able to review all the tableaus to see how the scoring was and where we made mistakes. When I play this game on the table we always kibitz at the end to discuss and learn strategies. Aside from the scoring issues there are quirks to the app but I’m confident y’all will work them out. Please make the scoring/endgame better and I’ll be glad to bump it to a 5star review.

Excellent, but still some issues

Thu Aug 31 2017 ShadowSpawnOFCS

I've really been enjoying the single-player against the AI and have spent more than enough hours playing to be happy with the purchase (273 games so far). My biggest complaint is that it keeps me up late playing. One oddity is that playing a card you pay for with cards or activated abilities you can undo; if it's free (e.g. Military planet) you can't undo. It crashes infrequently, and usually restarts with no problem when it does (though you may get different cards), but twice now it's actually corrupted my profile such that any attempt to start or resume a game crashes the app; all I can do in those profiles is view stats. It is easy enough to make a new profile, but frustrating if you like to looking at your stats. Even with those issues it's well worth it. I have the base game and 2/3 expansions.

AI cheats on hard mode

Fri Mar 08 2024 Nagred

No other explanation. The AI Hard player ALWAYS uses the same strategy (production), never military or any other path to victory. After ten games vs three AI players (two medium, one hard), the hard AI has won every time. My point is that you don’t win every game using the production strategy (duh, that’s why there are other strategies)… UNLESS you cheat. How? By dealing itself the cards from the deck that it needs for the first four or five turns, then cycling produce/consume 2x for the rest of the game. The AI is beatable at the easy or medium levels, but if you’re planning on playing vs the AI to improve your game, you’re wasting your time.

Great game, mediocre interface

Mon Sep 24 2018 Spiffy Robinson

I love the board game version of RftG, so I was very excited to try the app. However, the interface is not designed well and it makes the game difficult to enjoy. For one thing, the app doesn't fill the screen on the iPhone X. Another problem is that the interface elements are very small and hard to read. I'd have preferred a modal interface that shows only the information that's pertinent during each phase, so the IL interface elements are larger and easier to read. Lastly, it isn't clear what steps are happening as the round progresses, so I often have to bring up the log to understand what happened. This is worse because the log is difficult to reach from the game interface. I hope they address these problems in future updates

Multi-player lags

Sat Jan 26 2019 atb0786

Pros: good implementation, difficult AIs. Cons: multi-player tied to single device, random numbers seem off. It’s a good port of the board game, and is pretty playable on an iPad, although it’s painful to read on iPhones. The tutorial is nice, and the AI, even at medium is a good challenge. The issues really come up for me in multi player. Although you can link devices, you can only play turns on the device you started the game on. In addition, with more that two players, there’s some real problems with game state. I don’t think I’ve successfully completed a three player game online. Card distribution seems off. With all of the expansions, the deck should be huge, but you see the same big point cards almost every game, and it makes it hard to win if you opponents draw them.

No multiplayer on linked iTunes accounts!

Mon Jul 31 2017 asp520

The app looks beautiful, but so far my husband and I can't use multiplayer together! I bought it specifically for the "network multiplayer" (we love that Carcassonne lets us play together without internet, and I hoped this would be the same). However, every time we download RftG and try to "friend" each other, within a few minutes it recognizes us as the same player. Our "friend" codes match up, and he disappears from my "friend" list. We have separate Apple IDs and Gamecenter IDs, and we've never had this issue before! I emailed Temple Gates Games and will update my review when I hear back. It seems like so far they have been very responsive to user feedback, so I hope to see it fixed in an update soon. I think the app is probably overall very strong, but I wanted to warn others who are buying primarily to play with family members!

4.5: Great game with one bug

Wed Jun 24 2020 LTG879

If you like engine building card games this is fantastic. And the app runs smoothly. But in at least one game my final score didn’t include certain victory points granted by special cards. It’s fun to play even with thus flaw but accurately counting victory points seems essential to the game. Update: I was wrong. The scoring was correct but not transparent. It turns out some card values are variably scored behind the scenes. But this isn’t explained to the user which is confusing. I thought I had a card worth x+y but in fact it was just x. In general the brief rules explanations are enough to get going but not enough to understand gameplaying mistakes.

Great game that actually has decent AI

Fri Feb 02 2018 Reidemeister

(Edited from original review) I love this game, and the app is very well done. It’s one of the few board game apps I’ve come across that actually has competent AI players (at least at high difficulty). I was having crash issues for a while after installing the Brink of War expansion, but after a phone restart and iOS update, they’ve disappeared, so the problem was likely on my phone’s end. To the developer’s credit, they did reach out to see if they could help fix the issue, but since it went away on its own there wasn’t anything that needed to be done.