Designers: Aaron Andrew Wilson (Why I Otter), Ian Zang (Constellations, Curio: The Last Temple)

Artist: Giacomo Tappainer (13 Clues, CO2, CO2: Second Chance)

Publisher: Deep Water Games (Hanamikoji, Round House, Welcome To…)

Genre/Mechanisms: action/movement programming, area control, miniatures, modular board, political, rondel, set collection

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Sovereign Skies is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 3x the initial funding goal with 4 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About:  Players take on the role of a “human faction orbiting the six planets of the Abyssi cluster to recruit alien senators for favors and to establish occupation by constructing and activating bases for energy and influence.”

How It Works: Each turn, players Move their Mothership and then take 1-3 actions to help them earn Energy and Influence. Players either Move their Mothership at least one adjacent tile in the direction their ship faces, or they can pay 2 Energy to reverse direction. Players also can pay 1 Energy for each planet moved in addition to the first. Once at their destination, any player having a sole majority on that planet (the player with the most activated Bases there) is paid 1 Energy from the bank.

The active player can then perform 1 action and earn 1 Energy from the bank, perform 2 actions with no Energy gain/loss, or perform 3 actions and pay 1 Energy to the bank. Actions include: Adding a Ship, Taking a Politic Card, or take a Special Planet Action. When a player Adds a Ship, they move one from their supply to their Mothership’s current planet location. And there the ship will stay, unless the player moves it later with a Relocate action or removes it with a Construct action. A player may only Take a Politic Card if they have no other Politic Cards from the planet in question in their hand. And the Special Planet actions are as follows: Recruiting on Deyvas, the player Discards 2 Politic cards from their hand that match the Planetary icons on one of the 3 available Senator cards, also collecting the topmost Senator chit from the corresponding Senator card stack; Activating a Base on Hreja, the player flips one of their unactivated bases over to activate it, also collecting the topmost Activation Influence chit from the stack matching the Planet’s color level where the activated Base is located; Construction on Utei, the player removes a Base from their player board and places it activation-side down on any single Planet where the player has enough ships to Construct, also taking the bonus action revealed from under the Base’s location on the player’s mat; Pledging on Eylona, the player discards a Politic card from their hand back to its planet stack, gaining a matching Pledge Influence chit if available as well as acquiring 1 Energy, or stealing one from an opponent if the active player holds sole majority on the Planet, or if neither is possible, collecting 1 Standard Influence, and then repeating this action up to 2 more times; Relocating on Wyrne, the player may relocate up to 2 ships; and Refueling on Solenmere, the player takes 2 Energy from the Bank, as well as an additional energy for every Base, active or not, on all Planet tiles. On their turn, players can also Play a Senator Card as a free action. When playing a Senator card, the active player takes 2 of the 3 actions on the card, and then discards it from the game. Senator actions include: collecting 3 Energy from the Bank, Paying 2 Energy to Construct a Base on any Planet where the player has the required Ships, Swapping a Politic Card from the player’s hand with another Politic Card from any active Planet; Paying 1 Energy to take the Pledge action described above, Paying 1 Energy to Relocate up to 3 Ships, and Adding one Ship from their Supply to any one Planet.

The game ends when two stacks from the Senator Influence and/or Activation Influence chits have been depleted. The players finish the current round so that every player has had an equal number of turns, and then score end-game points. Players add all of their points from Base, Senator, and Pledge Influence; points from any Standard Influence chits; and 1 point for every 3 Energy.

Comparisons:  The bright iconography and simple design, combined with enough tactical choices to keep the game fresh, reminds me in some ways of both Sentient and Space Explorers. The game board calls to mind the currently running KS-campaing for The Search for Planet X, but that game is more deduction than anything else. Perhaps gameplay-wise there are some similarities to be found with Navegador, but in general Sovereign Skies seems to be a simple, tight design that’s also somewhat unique.

What Should I Pledge?:
$29 Sovereign Skies: Kickstarter Edition- the base game, the exclusive Houses Rising mini-expansion, and all unlocked stretch goals.

Add-Ons:
$20 Playmat
$15 Metal Energy Coins
$25 Art Print

KS Exclusives:
The Houses Rising mini-expansion is a KS-Exclusive.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $29 for the Kickstarter Edition pledge plus $10 in shipping for a total of $39. If you want to pick up both the Playmat and the Coins, then it’s $74.

Sovereign Skies completes its Kickstarter on Tuesday, October 22nd and tentatively ships in May 2020.