Star Trek Game (1967)

Original Release: 1967
Developer: Julie Cooper
Publisher: Ideal Toys
Platform: Board Game

The first Star Trek boardgame, which I have recreated in Tabletop Simulator. If it wasn’t from the box design and the name on the board, you probably wouldn’t even guess that it’s Star Trek related, as the ships are just regular pawns and the design of the fuel ship art is a very strange design. There’s a Starfleet delta on the mission cards, but that’s about it.

The game is set in a solar system that consists of Earth and six planets names after Greek letters. Your mission is to visit three planets (a card will tell you which ones and the order) then return to Earth, first one to do so wins.

Each turn you will play a fuel card and move that amount of spaces either horizontally and vertically. You start off with cards numbered 1-10 but as you refuel you can pick out of what everyone has discarded, so you need to carefully plan your route. Your target is the “Orbit entrance point”, which you need to land on exactly to start your descent – once you land on a planet, you can refuel by picking three cards.

After you’ve made a movement, you roll the dice and move one of the two fuel ships that many spaces. If you manage to get it to land next to you, you can draw a fuel card. This is rare, though, as players are constantly fighting to move it closer to them. If you run out of fuel, you move one space per turn, making it very slow progress.

It’s existence of the game is interesting, but it’s ultimately quite boring to play.