I picked up a copy of Gale Force Nine’s Firefly: The Game board game a week ago. I’ve yet to play it with others, but there is a “solo” option that I tried out. The game is nicely made, with high production values. There’s a board loosely based on the Quantum Mechanix Map of the Verse, five Firefly-class miniature pieces, a Reaver vessel, and an Alliance Cruiser; there’s a collection of different game card decks — this seems to be a new trend in board games, having a dozen decks of cards for things.

FireflyInProgress

Play is simple you take jobs from various contacts, try to do said assignments, and meet the requirements on a “story card” to win. Doing a quick trial as a solo, I found that the difficulty for some of the jobs require you not to just leap into misbehavin’ — but you want to get together a crew with the widest variety of skills you might need. There are some “short cuts” you can take — gear you need to pull off the job with ease (two words — “hacking rig”) or specific crew members. Resolving jobs has you roll a d6 — if you get Serenity, that counts as a six and you can roll again and add the amount.

It looks like it could be a lot of fun and the learning curve looks to be relatively low. The flavor of the show comes through very well in the game materials and play — Browncoats should love it. The game runs about $40 and I think it’s worth it, especially for Firefly fans. There are also a pair of card expansions for the game already available.