Firefly: The Game Will Leave You Anything But Board

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

firefly gameIn this digital age, it isn’t that often that board games get a lot of attention outside of friendly get-togethers. They’re usually overshadowed by console video games, or, God forbid, Candy Crush. But the company Gale Force 9 knows exactly how to invigorate people’s interest in the medium, and it doesn’t include a tie-in with Monopoly. They fully unveiled Firefly: The Game at this year’s GenCon, which took place last weekend. Not only did they offer demos, but they sold off a select few pre-release games to the rabid crowds.

As you can tell from the above picture, this looks like it has more in common with Risk than most other games out there, only with more Firefly elements and less Russia. It also looks like the kind of pastime that I’ll need explained to me every step of the way, every time I play. There are a lot of parts to this thing.

Essentially, you have a ship, a crew, and a mission. There are six different “storylines” for you to play, and each comes with a series of goals that must be completed before a winner can be crowned. You might transport cargo, you might run from Reavers. Who knows? The sky, or rather the edge of the board, is the limit. You’ll do better hearing it explained by a Gale Force 9 employee below.

And the following video delves into the details of the game play itself, which essentially means cards, cards, and more cards. It also makes me want to play this game in the worst possible way, with a flask full of something manly.

Sounds like a game you could teach your grandmother in her sleep, right? Maybe not. There’s no denying just how popular this item is, however, as it only took six minutes to sell out all 300 copies on the convention floor. You know you want to see a video of that happening, too, right?

For everyone who didn’t get a chance to purchase the game early, your best bet would be to zip on over to Amazon to pre-order it. The retail price is going to be a whopping $59.99, but Amazon’s price is $46. I don’t know that I’d ever feel comfortable paying that much money for a board game, but when I add up all the time I’ve spent not playing Firefly games, it seems like a bargain.