About Space Aces: Landing Party, from BoardGameGeek:
Space Aces: Landing Party is a fast-playing casual card game for 2-3 players that is quick to pick up, challenging to master, and plays in just 10-30 minutes. Combine two decks to play with up to 4 players.
Premise: It is the 23rd century and the golden age of galactic exploration has begun. As proud members of the Stellar Alliance, your crew has been sent out on a mission of discovery. But you are just one of many crews, and everybody wants the prestigious honor of discovering new planets. Set your phasers to “stunning” as you deploy a daring cast of Crew Members & Special Guests for a fun-filled episode as you outwit your friends to boldly go and get there first!
Cards: 18 standard crew members & 3 cadets make up the core game, and 8 included special guests can be mixed in to open up new avenues of strategy and tactics. The fast-paced play and infinite replayability will keep you and your friends coming back for "just one more" to settle the score.
Landing Party is a small game of deep strategy. Each player starts with 7 unique crew member cards on their starship and 1 crew member hidden in their ship's transporter buffer. Each player takes turns beaming down a crew member of equal or higher rank to take command on a newfound world. The last player able to beam down a crew member wins the mission for their crew.
Designed to minimize luck and richly reward skillful play. Since all the cards in play (except for 2) are known by all players, the game becomes one of evolving tactics and strategy. The highest ranked crew members are not necessarily the best. Each crew member and special guest has a unique special ability. Mastering when & how to use these abilities is the real secret to success.
There's always an interesting choice to be made! Will you try to crush your opponents with high ranking Officers? Or will you try to draw out their low cards and trap them with a clever Secret Agent? Will you use your Tactician to force an opponent to play that key crew member too soon? Or will you sacrifice your Red Shirt to revive a stunned character in a shocking turn of events? Do you keep your crew member's rank or do you stun it to activate its special ability? The possible strategies and tactics are endless!
Stuck in a bind? Activate your Starship and fire phasers to stun whatever character is in command on the planet. But each player can only do this once, so use this ability wisely!
The beauty of the game comes from the deep interactions between the crew members and their special abilities as well as reading your opponents and guessing their strategy. The more you play, the more tricks & tactics you will discover. And since each round only takes about 10 minutes, there's always time for one more!
-description from the designer
