Real-life SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) these days is all about radio telescope arrays, looking at distant stars and hoping for a repeat of the WOW signal one day. Cinematically, this is represented by the 1997 film Contact. The box of SETI the board game promises the same, with a nice array of radio telescopes pictured, but inside the box aliens are certain to be found much closer to home. Not quite so close to home that you can chase after a group of kids on bicycles but a good chunk of the action takes place in exploring the solar system, and four out of the potential five alien species have a presence there...
SETI is designed by Tomáš Holek and published by Czech Games Edition. The board is fun, with the main section representing the solar system and parts that rotate around the sun to represent orbiting planets and asteroids. This is necessarily simpler than a full orrery, so that Earth, Venus and Mercury all rotate at the same pace, for example, but the game dynamic nevertheless works well. Careful planning of how you position your space probes can benefit from the rotating solar system. Once your space probe reaches a planet, it can either become an orbiter (usually good for scanning distant stars and tucking cards to build your income stream), or a lander (good for finding evidence of aliens). Surrounding the solar system are eight distant stars which can be scanned to gather data tokens, and when enough scans are done you find evidence of aliens that way. Data tokens go onto your player board computer, and when the computer is full of data that can be analysed to have a third way of finding evidence of aliens. There is also a supply of technologies, paid for rather oddly with publicity. (I guess there is an implied step of government funding that links publicity with technology, but this isn’t fungible with the game money that lets you play cards and launch probes). Technologies once acquired go onto your player board and can improve your space probes, your telescope scans or your computer.
Resources are very tight in SETI and you are unlikely to ever have very much money or many energy tokens or cards. Most main actions, including playing cards, cost a mix of money or energy, so you have to plan carefully what actions you want to prioritise, and this can give rise to analysis paralysis (AP) in some players. Main actions do things like launch, orbit or land space probes, telescope scan the distant stars, or analyse the data in your computer. Cards give you a wider set of options, but there is a luck involved in getting the right cards at the right time.
Eventually, the players will generate enough evidence of aliens to reveal two alien species (chosen randomly from the five options). Each alien species is different and they all give variation in how play progresses beyond discovery, extra card decks or samples to collect etc.. as well as plenty more options to turn evidence into points. I don’t want to give too many spoilers about the aliens but none of them are hostile and only one is really dangerous in any way. This has a very upbeat feel as a trope, which fits with the overall SETI concept. There is an obvious route for future expansions with more alien races (or even the absence of aliens).
Ultimately players are competing for points and, in typical eurogame fashion, points can be obtained in many different ways. Space probes, telescope scans and data can all get you points, as can some cards if conditions are met, and of course there are end-game bonuses. Big points tend to come, fittingly, from contact with the aliens.
SETI plays best with four, but works OK with two or three. The solitaire version offers a range of bot rival space agencies with increasing difficulty, which set more conditions to fulfil, not for points but to slow the development of the bot. Solo gameplay is essentially the same, its just easier to get distracted by the need to fulfil the bot’s requirements rather than developing your own plan.
To conclude, SETI might not be a great game but it is definitely a good game. But after all, ET never said 'Be great'.
(Review by Gareth Colesmith)