The Story

In the outer reaches of the Milky Way, four powerful countries from Earth have sent their robotic rover on an expedition to start colonizing a distant planet. The first country to establish a planetary base will get a tremendous advantage over its competitors. However, building a base is no easy task, and the rover must navigate hostile terrain to collect the necessary resources.

Because of the enormous distance to the planet, the rovers can only be operated at certain times, when the communications link is in reach of the Earth’s surface. You can only send sequential instructions to your rover—command by command.

Unfortunately, the competing countries have hired skillful hackers, who have the ability to insert their own commands in your communication channel. Your security team, however, can detect these rogue commands and counteract them. Even better, your own team of hackers can insert commands into your competitors’ channels.

Once a rover receives a program, it executes it step-by-step with the help of the on-board AI, which supplies several extra features. For instance, the rover can climb over difficult terrain, repeat certain commands, cancel malicious commands, and even change direction. These features, however, require special resources, which on the hostile surface of the planet are not always easy to obtain.

Game Play

Terrain

The planet terrain is random for every game and it is slowly evolves as game progresses adding more valuable resources and obstacles. Terrain has walls which are difficult to scale and a system of caves that allows rovers to move under the surface.

Game phases

The game is played in several communication sessions. Each session consists of four phases

1. Programming Phase

Each player has three turns to send commands to their own rover, or insert hacks in a rival rover’s program. Rovers do not move at this time. At this phase it is important to guess your opponents intentions and hide your own goals. You can also try to make agreements with other players to play against the winner or help each other to get to resources you need.

2. Execution Phase

The rovers execute the programs, in up to four rounds. Now all plans are revealed, but you still can play feature cards to simulate on-board AI actions and save the day.

3. Resource Collection Phase

After the programs finish, if the rovers end up on a resource or feature card, the player collects that card.

4. Cleanup Phase

Players get new Command cards, and empty Terrain spots are repopulated with Exploration and Terraform cards, which might contain either resources, features or hostile terrain.

Components

Terraform deck (26 cards)	Cardinal Directions (4 cards)	Discard card
Exploration Deck (11 cards)	Landing Positions (5 cards)	Programming Deck (6 cards)
Terraform Deck (11 cards)	Commands Deck (44 cards)	Instructions booklet