Planets vs Species

I think it’s only natural to do a direct comparison between 🐾 Search for the Lost Species and 🪐 Seach for Planet X - Species is basically a sequel to Planet X, even their names are alike. Having played both I think I prefer Species, but Planet X still remains one of the very best logical deductions games. 🥰

The first difference you will notice is the spatial aspect: Instead of a circle where things are either to the left or right of each other, you have an island made up of hexes. (I’m a sucker for hexes so I find this amazing. 😄) This brings in cardinal directions and also mountain meeples that break adjacency. The hexes also have 1 of 3 terrain types. This way clues you can get are much more creative and diverse, making the puzzle that much more replayable and fun. 👍

My favorite mechanics in Planet X were the Research Topics 🔭 and submitting Theories 📝. You have both of these again with some clever tweaks. Researching is now linked to visiting a town, where you ask locals for their knowledge. You cannot visit a town again until you get your town token back, which is dictated by the time track. I think this is much more subtle than before, where you simply couldn’t research twice in a row. Submitting Theories is similar: During certain time track triggers you can place down Sighting 🔎 tokens, which will be checked later, giving everyone information. To keep track, numbered tokens remind you when each Sighting was placed.

The aforementioned towns do bring something completely new to the game. Cards! 🃏 In addition to checking a research topic, you also get to choose one of 4 cards from the market. These are either a powerful one use effect, an ongoing bonus or an end-game scoring condition.

All these changes also elevate the difficulty a tiny bit - timing is more important and you have to keep track of more details.

I think all of the additions and tweaks lead to a more refined game, however I still don’t believe it makes Planet X obsolete. I would happily recommend both games depending on which theme and level of complexity you prefer!