Review – Star Wars: Rebel Missions Game

Wonder Forge (website, Twitter) has jumped into the upcoming Star Wars: Rebels animated series with what has turned out to be a fantastic little co-op game. Designed for two to five players, the $15 Star Wars: Rebel Missions game is far, far more impressive than I was expecting when I bought the game at ToysRUs. I opened the box looking for a very simple little game. What I found was a great game that fans of co-op boardgames like Pandemic* need to rush out and buy.

Attractive Packaging

Above you can see the front and back of the Star Wars: Rebel Missions game, and as you can see it uses the newer Star Wars series toy/game packaging design. I love how Lucasfilm runs their packaging design across multiple companies, giving all of the Star Wars toys and games a unified appearance . . . even when the toys and games are being published by several different companies all at once. The window on the front of the box shows off the Imperial Timer component, but we can get into that later.

As soon as the box is open we find a vac tray and all of the game components neatly presented. Not shown are the rules, but those are a colorful and small sheet that’s folded over to create a total of four-pages of game rules. And with lots of photos of the components in the rules the four-pages of instructions isn’t at all intimidating or tough to follow.

Imperial Timer

The first component — and most important for making the game work neatly — is the electronic Imperial Timer. Three AA batteries (not included) power the device which acts as a giant sandtimer with music, sound effects, and a tracking feature that tells you when the game is over. As soon as the timer is activated the game starts, and players — using the dice and their character abilities — rush to complete four missions and win the game. If the Imperial Timer runs out before four missions are completed then all of the players lose and the game wins. It’s a great introductory co-op game!

Rebel Profile Cards

Shown above, there are five different character cards in the game. Each player selects one before the game starts; this is your character during the game. Each character has one special ability — shown on the card — and during the game a player can activate his special ability to help complete a mission.

Mission Cards

These are the objectives the players are trying to accomplish before the timer runs out. Each mission (only one is in play at a time) has resource requirements on the corners of the card (not every mission requires four resources) and there’s a code along the bottom of the card. Once players successfully play tokens/special abilities to achieve the mission’s requirements then they enter the code into the timer. That’s one of four down! Keep going!!!

Resource Tokens

They feel more like tiny cards, but regardless of what they are called these are the resources used to complete missions. Players collect these tokens on their turn when the dice results come up show a “single token” or a “double token” result. The tokens in my set were kinda stuck together at first; I suggest shuffling all of the tokens before starting the game because you don’t want to waste precious time separating cards when the timer is counting down.

Dice

The last component in the box, these two pad-printed dice are rolled on a player’s turn and drive the action of the game. Icons on the dice represent collecting resources, playing resources, or Imperial symbols that can end a player’s turn. Collecting resources does not end a turn — the player can choose to roll again — but playing resources does end a turn.

What’s a co-op game?

Star Wars: Rebel Missions is a cooperative game, with all of the players working together to defeat the Empire. Co-op games are great for families with young kids — no one loses unless the game wins — but plenty of adults also love these sorts of games and they’re great for parties. What I find most impressive about the Star Wars: Rebel Missions game is that it’s a cleanly and elegantly-designed game and has a lot more fun shoved into the box than I was expecting. The timer component looks gimmicky, but in action it looks and sounds great and is far more exciting on the table than a simple (and what would need to be giant) sandtimer.

Closing Thoughts

I am seriously impressed. Wonder Forge (website, Twitter) has crafted a truly remarkable Star Wars tabletop game that really needs to be checked out if you’re at all a fan of Star Wars and games. The co-op element is smoothly accomplished with the dice roll indicating when other players can participate on their off turns, and the gimmicky timer is neater than I hoped and adds more than just a weird bit of eyecandy on the table.

Star Wars: Rebel Missions is out there now. I found mine at ToysRUs, and I highly recommend that all of you go now and find a copy of your own. $15 for all of this is a great deal, and I hope this does so well that we see Wonder Forge attempt some more co-op games for Star Wars. Great stuff!!!

Oh. And Wonder Forge, if you ever need anyone to playtest your games feel free to shout. I’ll happily spend some of my time going over and trying your new games.