Let's mine some asteroids

We enjoyed playing a demo of Ceres at last year’s SPIEL22, so we were looking forward to the actual release. 🙂 The game is played in the not-too-distant future of our world, where long distance space travel 🚀 is becoming more prevalent, and Mars was already colonized 100 years ago. You are leading an asteroid mining corporation on the dwarf planet Ceres 🌕, exploiting asteroids for their resources and trying to become the best in the business. 💪

🧐The main focus of Ceres is worker-placement and resource management, with tableau- and engine-building, and multiple ways to score points. As you go through the rulebook, most rules will be quite familiar if you are a seasoned euro gamer, but the game has some clever ideas in store! 👌

Let’s start with the worker-placement. You can take actions by placing one of your tokens on the corresponding spaces on the board in the usual way, however there are also neutral worker meeples that you can use to activate building cards of your tableau. You have these 2 systems working in tandem, so you always have a wide spectrum of things to do. ☝️But spots for your tokens and the colored meeples are both scarce, so you always have to watch out and time your actions cleverly.

Tableau-building is another fun part of Ceres. Using the construction action you get new cards for your tableau, deciding whether to upgrade an existing outstation, meaning the meeple action will be more effective, or placing it as a new card so it provides income and a new action slot. So as the game goes on, your options expand.

There is also a research track where you can advance in 3 different fields, which are the 3 main ways to score points: Launching probes 🛰️ to the asteroid belt, constructing new buildings 🏗️, or trading and fulfilling contracts 📠. Researching gives you passive bonuses so you can focus your strategy.

During play you juggle 6 different resources including credits, which are needed for all kinds of things. All in all, I think Ceres is a nice mid-weight euro, so you might want to check it out for yourself! 😉We’ll be back with more thoughts soon!