Mission Control: Critical Orbit Review

boardgamequest.com:

We reivewWe review Mission Control: Critical Orbit, a 4 player, real time roll and write game published by 3WS games. Can you save the Mercury III rocket? You must work together!

There are plenty of space games out there, and the number of roll and writes is pretty overwhelming at this point. So, what can a new game in a crowded genre with an oft-done theme bring to the table? How about asymmetric player roles? What if it’s a co-op? And why not make it real-time to pile on the pressure? Will that be enough to send this game into orbit, or do the innovative elements feel gimmicky and fall flat?

Mission Control: Critical Orbit is a real-time, cooperative roll and write game from 3WS Games designed by Corey Andalora and Donnie Coleman for 2-4 players and plays in 20 minutes.

A 4-player game of Mission Control: Critical Orbit sees each player running a separate board and pursuing asymmetric immediate goals to contribute to the larger shared objective of restoring the necessary oxygen levels of the Mercury III rocket. One player takes control of Mercury III, building oxygen flow routes with conduit tiles that will be controlled by valves. The other three players each take on the role of one of the Mission Control sites, located in the U.S., India, and Germany.

The Houston player helps to unlock conduit tiles for Mercury III on a crossword puzzle-like board by filling out specific shapes with the rolled numbers. Bengaluru plays a minigame similar to Sudoku by completing rows and columns without repeating numbers to produce valves for Mercury III. The player controlling Cologne fills in a sort of equalizer/bar graph chart to unlock canister dials that the Mercury III player can use to route oxygen flow.

Once players have chosen their roles and taken the corresponding boards, a 20-minute timer is started. On each turn of the game, the Mercury III Flight Commander rolls 3 dice behind a screen and dictates the numbers to the Mission Control players. They’ll decide amongst