The year is 1957. The first Frisbees are sold, Elvis Presley purchases Graceland, and the USSR launches Sputnik 1, which kicks off the Space Race, an escalating competition between the Soviet Union and the United States to further space flight and be the first to land a man on the moon.
One Small Step by Academy Games takes the excitement and tension of this moment in time and encapsulates it into a worker placement and resource management board game for 2-4 players. When the game puts the fates of nations into your hands, which space program will prevail?
Gameplay Overview:
With two players, one person plays as the Soviet Union and the other as the United States. With four, players work in teams, each member controlling either engineers or administrators for their team’s nation. The game ends when one team reaches the moon, and whoever has earned the most victory points at that time wins. Players accomplish this by allocating engineers and administrators to action blocks on the Earth portion of the board, collecting the resources indicated.
Through worker placement, players can draft development and astronaut cards that will help them along their way, or collect the resource tokens that will allow them to accomplish their missions. Completed missions are how players collect the best rewards and victory points, as well as moving themselves closer towards the moon. Resources are one-time use early on, but can be upgraded to be renewable as more actions are unlocked, allowing players to plot out a more effective engine.
The first nation to land on the moon gets a point bonus, but won’t necessarily secure victory. There are a lot of paths to winning, including effectively managing your space program’s media image, which can also score you advantages and victory points. There are dozens of choices to be made at each stage of the game that may inform your nation’s path to success, and if you’re not keeping your eye on the other nation, they’ll sneak past you to the finish line.
Game Experience:
One Small Step includes both a beginner and an advanced mode of play. We played the beginner mode, which simplifies some of the resources and actions. It’s still a pretty crunchy euro in beginner mode, as well as gobbling up most of our table. Being more of a mid-weight gamer, I would have been put off if it weren’t for the clearly lovingly crafted rulebook. Beautifully organized and laid out, this rulebook is a wonder to behold, including historic context for the time period the game is set in and full size/full color card and tile clarifications. Each play phase gets a dedicated walkthrough page, which communicates the content without overcrowding or complicating the visual field. It’s simple, clear and effective, the best things that a rulebook can be.
Passion for the content is a constant throughout the game. The cards are decorated with photos, propaganda pictures, political cartoons, and other ephemera directly pulled from the headlines of the period. Actual astronauts and historical figures are featured, as well as events and equipment accurate to the timeline. NASA fans will not be disappointed. Historical euro games tend to situate themselves more in the preindustrial eras, giving One Small Step a unique position in that market.
I enjoyed puzzling through how to most effectively deploy workers, deciding whether to focus on my current launch mission or plan ahead for upgrading my resources. The game is full of micro-decisions and adjustments, making progress towards victory more of a swell than a sudden swoop. Moving closer to the Moon is exciting, creating a tangible race that threatens to turn the tides as play progresses. Trying to accrue as many victory points as possible before that end condition is met is a balancing act that keeps players on their toes.
The game takes what works best about many resource management and worker placement games and tunes it to the Space Race theme, without reinventing the wheel. It works beautifully for two players, but the four player version requires balanced teamwork lest one player ends up taking the lead, quarterbacking the decision making.
Final Thoughts:
If you’re a fan of worker placement euros, there is solid fun to be had here. If you’re a fan of the space race on top of that, this could be a gem in your collection. One Small Step is a beautifully produced and lovingly rendered game. It captures the excitement and innovation of the moment with precision, and gives players the chance to live it out for themselves.
Final Score: 4 Stars – If you love historical accuracy or space flight, this game will impress.
Hits:
• Top notch rulebook with a clean, easy to follow layout
• High production quality
• Engaging engine building that requires thoughtful choices
Misses:
• If you’re not interested in the theme, gameplay isn’t particularly innovative
• Historical photos on the cards make them blend into one another
• Four player doesn’t provide quite enough for each person to do
I bought this game from a bargain sale and it was one of the highlights of last year. My wife and I love it and now my daughter is getting really passionate about astronomy so I can’t wait to play with her!