Description

John Carter, a civil war veteran, unexpectedly found a gateway to Mars and became an unwitting space explorer and hero.

You live in 2089, the year a distress signal from deep space revealed a shocking surprise - that same John Carter is still alive. After finding another gateway, this one through both time and space, he has found an unknown world and sends for help. Your quest is to find him and bring him home. To do this you will have to improve your ship, bring on the right crew, and succeed in a series of missions that will lead you to fulfill your ultimate goal - find John Carter!

At the start of each round, each player draws 5 cubes from a draw bag. This is the player's crew. They may consist of unskilled workers, merchants, officers, mechanics, smugglers, navigators, and gunners. Each player then places a player token on one of several spaces on the board. They may go to the academy to improve a crew member's skill (gain new cubes) or recruit a specialist, to the market to get fuel, crystals, or money. These items are used to fulfil missions and trade in the black market. They may go to the cantina to gain a smuggler--they could take a smuggler to the black market to gain any good. They may go to the shipyard to improve their space craft. Or they may choose to fulfil a mission.

The goal of the game is to gain the most points from their ship, full sets of crew members, sets of crystals, sets of specialists, and missions. Each mission is in a mission row and the player to have the most completed missions in a row also gets a bonus. Each mission also has been assigned by an agency. Gaining multiple agency mission tiles also gives a bonus. The game ends when John Carter is found. All players will finish the current round and the game ends.

—description from the designer