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Thomas Lehmann is famous for creating “Race for the Galaxy” and Jump Drive feels like taking that Race and turning it into a sprint.
Jump Drive has a recommended set-up for beginners: a set of cards with “first play icons” on them and you it suggests you deal five to each player with a natural synergy built into these starter cards. This is because, if there is one way this game is going to immediately crash, it's because a player will have a hand of cards that are simply impossible to play (or, being unfamiliar with the icons and the game itself, be unable to clearly see how to progress). The game knows this and it even builds in some other fall backs, like allowing you to take an “Survey Team” card instead of playing a card from your hand, which does double duty because it isn't coming out of your hand and it gives you plus one military, allowing you to play one defense worlds early. And it also includes a tile you can claim if you don't like anything in your hand, since it basically comes down to “Draw a bunch of cards, keep two and discard the rest.”
But, after your first game, the rules say to simply deal each player seven cards, let them keep five and begin their turn. This does nothing to alleviate the “I have cards I can't really play” problem. We experienced this a few games in. My Daughter, Piper, was on the receiving end of being dealt expensive, unplayable cards. Should I have used the first game recommended set-up? Obviously. Did I? Nope. (I disliked the idea of pushing players in a certain direction with preset cards). This was a two-fold tragedy because not only could she not really play cards because of what she had in her hand, she was also unable to get the “feel” for how the game plays since, well, she couldn't really play it. This first impression has put her off from ever wanting to return to it. Making a player feel handcuffed while others players raced to a huge VP lead really soured the experience. This is my long winded way of saying that Jump Drive can be fragile. And, not to make excuses for it, but when the game lasts less than 30 minutes even with the full compliment of four players, I can forgive it for breaking down occasionally...even if Piper hasn't.
Jump Drive is a super quick game. The entirely of an round is “Simultaneously select One or Two cards, play them and pay for them.” and usually the game is over is six or seven rounds. Since you pay for cards you play with cards from your hand, it's a balancing act of what you want to play, what you want to keep and how many is a good number to spend. When you first begin, the 50 VP victory condition looks like it is going to be a marathon but you eat that up like a sprinter in a fifty yard dash. It has that traditional balance of income (money/cards) versus Victory Points. As with the original Race for the Galaxy, you also have that balance impacted by Military Planets/Units that allow you to conquer/acquire without spending income and, at the same time, give a batch of Victory points.
You won't find any real direct interaction with other players but there are a few cards that allow you to score all of a specific type of development cards, not just those in your tableau. Getting one of these high cost cards out feels like a real accomplishment, one that has the immediate rush of an avalanche of points and the knowledge it is going to keep getting more powerful when you or anyone else plays the proper cards.
Jump Drive plays at light speed and does a great job of making it feel like you have built a empire in less than 30 (or 15 or 10) minutes. It doesn't last long enough to be considered a true engine builder, instead it feels like a combo creator. It comes across like the original Twilight Zone television series in how much it can pack into a short amount of time. If you are of the younger crowd, just swap out Love, Death, and Robots for the above Twilight Zone reference...and you probably won't be near as bothered by the “Galactic Trendsetters" card as I was (Damn Influencers! Get off my lawn with your A.I. instatoks and “I can't leave Twixxer because the Dow is over 50,000!”).
A review copy of this release was provided by the publisher. Therewillbe.games would like to thank them for their support.
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