Description

Project Discovery is a solitaire Solar System space exploration game. Building space vehicles with a unique array of instrument cards, you move about the Solar System, explore planets and moons and find different science discoveries.

Space exploration is full of mystery, and Project Discovery has been given funding to discover some of these mysteries. You've been tasked with destinations to explore, uncovering new science as you probe each site with your vehicle and its instruments.

The game is a mix of mechanics including: random chit pulling, modified dice rolls, action choices, light deck building.

The game is setup by randomly pulling 4 destination cards (from a deck of 22) face up onto the map board. These represent the only destinations explorable for the game. On top of each destination card a hidden discovery chit is placed, representing 1 possible science discovery (science discoveries are worth victory points). The player starts with funding which allows him to buy cards and pay for other things in the game. Every 3 years there's a funding increase.

Each turn the player chooses from a list of free actions (building a vehicle mission by buying instrument cards, launching a mission, etc) and a list of choice actions, choosing 3 from a list of 8, these are the actions that move the game forward.

To explore each destination, there are 3 exploration types; Using the Space Exploratory tokens from Earth orbit, sending an Explorer Mission or sending a Vehicle Mission. Only vehicle missions can find discoveries. They are a collection of up to 4 cards purchase with funding (thruster, GNC support, 2 instrument cards). The Explorer Missions are single stand-alone cards that model the real life Voyager Probes, there are 2 for each game and are sent before the vehicle missions to gather data about any particular destination. The data is gained by successfully rolling the explorer mission exploration number at a destination which allows a choice of adding a second discovery, flipping a discovery already there, or adding a modifier to a future Vehicle Mission's success roll.

Each instrument has a discovery type and base roll number to roll when performing a discovery roll. Successfully finding a discovery is done by getting an instrument card to the destination by using the thruster card to move the vehicle map piece along planet, moon or inter-planet spaces and once at the destination of choice rolling a die. The success roll can be modified from previous game play to better the odds of success.