SETI is a board game about exploring space to find alien life. You run a space agency, launching probes, analysing data, and making discoveries to score points. While it might look like another Euro game with a space theme pasted on, there’s something special here I think.
The game combines detailed plastic components, a rotating solar system board, and clear iconography to create an experience that works on multiple levels. Each turn gives you straightforward choices that build into complex strategies. The aliens you discover change how you play mid-game, keeping things fresh even after several plays.
In this review, I’ll explore:
- How SETI plays from setup to scoring
- The components and visual design
- Playing against the solo mode bot
- Why I keep coming back to this game
As the first game I bought at Spiel, SETI matches what I look for in games – but it offers more than I expected. Let’s dive into how it works.
How to play SETI
In SETI it is your goal to explore space, to land probes, to do all kinds of things and ultimately score the most points.
Getting started
You start with your colour and a player board. That player board starts pretty much empty and throughout the game you will fill it. You set up the game with planets and asteroids and the rings in the solar system placed randomly. Then you set up everything around that. You also pick two alien species that will be discovered later – you put them face down and you will reveal them at a later point.
You start with some pieces and starting resources:
- Publicity
- Credits
- Energy
- Five cards from the deck
- One of those five cards you turn into income by tucking it under your starting card
Playing the game
After setup you’re ready to play. The game runs in five rounds and you can do one main action and additionally you can do free actions. You can only do one main action:
- Launch a probe
- Orbit a planet
- Land on a planet or moon
- Scan nearby stars
- Analyze data
- Play a card for its effect
- Research a technology
- Pass for the round
Once you take your main action and any free actions you want, your turn ends and it goes to the next player. If you need to resolve any milestones or discovered species, you do that and then it’s the next player’s turn.
Using cards
The main thing in the gameplay is using cards. You can use cards to do certain actions and the cards have multiple uses. They have a lot of icons and they are used for different things:
- On the left top corner is a free action. You can discard the card and then do the free action.
- On the right top is the sector colour. That matters when you want to scan a sector.
- On the main part of the card is the main action that you can use the card for. That has a certain cost and then it has an effect.
- Sometimes it has a mission, so you can get additional bonuses if you meet the conditions.
- All the way at the right bottom of the card is the income symbol. If you use that part – if you tuck it under your cards for its income effect – then you will gain the income that is on that card.
Ending a round
During your turn you do your main actions and then it’s the next player’s turn. You do this until everyone passes for the round. At the end of the round:
- You discard down to four cards if you have more than four
- You rotate the solar system if you’re the first player to pass this round
- You choose one card from the end of round cards to add to your hand
- Everyone gets income based on the cards they tucked under their board
- The starting player marker goes one space to the left
And that’s what you do in a game of SETI. Of course, there’s a lot more to it because orbiting planets, landing your probes, discovering alien species – that’s all things that you will do throughout the game and that adds the flavour. But just as a general overview, you use your cards, you do your actions, you do your free actions, all with the goal to score points and to gain more income, gain more points, discover alien species. You use the alien species to get more points.
Look and feel
SETI looks gorgeous. You have to love the space theme – if you’re not into that, I don’t think this will suddenly sway you. But I think it looks beautiful and very clean and crisp. Overall, they’ve done a great job with the visual presentation.
The solar system
The rotating solar system sits in the middle of the board with the sun at its centre. This centrepiece is just gorgeous. The rings rotate really well and everything works great.
Components
The game comes with:
- Data tokens – little plastic pieces with zeros and ones on them. They’re great.
- Player pieces – you get tokens for different uses, like the little microphone that you use for your publicity
- Landers and probes – beautifully crafted pieces you put into space
But then you have the credits and energy tokens. These are cardboard and that feels weird because everything else is so nice and made of plastic or similar materials. Then suddenly – cardboard. It takes me out every time. I don’t know, it just doesn’t work for me, so I will probably try to replace those with something else. Everything else is so nice and feels so good to handle, and then randomly there’s cardboard.
Visual design
The game looks really nice. It looks really clean and doesn’t feel overdone. The iconography is great – the icons are really clear. Even though SETI is a complicated game, the icons are really well done. They have different ways to combine icons, and that works in a way that even when multiple icons appear together, you still understand without reading the rulebook. You get what it means when you combine those things.
So overall, I’m impressed with the look and feel. The game has:
- A great look
- Clear design
- Well-done icons
- A strong space theme
How to play SETI solo
The solo game in SETI uses a bot that acts as a rival research institution. Setting this up is pretty straightforward – you just set up for a two-player game and then give the bot its own stuff.
Setting up solo play
The bot gets:
- Its own player board
- Four basic action cards to start
- Its own player pieces
- Objective tiles (unless you play the easiest difficulty)
I recommend using the objective tiles because it’s more fun that way. The setup has a few differences from the regular game, but basically you set up for two players and then set up the bot.
How the bot works
Each turn for the rival is simple – you draw one of their action cards and decide what they do. The card has actions listed from top to bottom. You try to resolve the top action. If you can’t do that, you do the next one. If you can’t do that, you do the next one. The bottom action is always something the bot can do, so it always does something.
Throughout the game, you will add more action cards to the bot’s deck. You’ll also add alien species action cards, so it can interact with the aliens that you discover. But when you start, you only have four action cards, which makes it really easy to learn how to play against the bot. The iconography stays the same as the rest of the game, so that also keeps it simple.
Objectives in solo play
The bot uses objectives to challenge you. You have a stack of objectives and reveal three. Each round you need to fulfill a specific number:
- Round one: fulfill one objective
- Round two: fulfill two objectives
- Round three: fulfill three objectives
- Etc.
If you miss objectives during the game, the rival gains points. Any leftover objectives at game end also give the rival points. This creates a real incentive to complete objectives, making it feel like you’re actually competing against someone instead of just playing alone on your board. You have to think about how to fulfil those objectives and how to prevent the rival from gaining points.
Bot growth
The AI does all the actions that you do, just differently. They don’t gain resources like you do. Instead, they use a progress track that determines which tech they get. When they go all the way around their progress track, they gain an extra card in their deck – these are more complicated cards that let them do more complex actions. This way, they become stronger throughout the game and provide real competition as you also grow stronger.
The game ends the same way as the regular game, with rounds playing out similarly. At the end, you compare your score with the AI’s score to see if you win.
I think the solo mode is very well done. Some people say it’s difficult, but I found it manageable after playing a full two-handed game first to learn the icons. When I tried the solo bot after that, all the icons made sense and I didn’t find it hard to use. Starting with just four cards makes it very approachable, and yes, you have to track a few things like the progress track, but it’s definitely not the most complex bot I’ve played. It gives you a real challenge while staying simple enough to run smoothly.
What I think of the game
You could say that SETI is a pretty standard Euro game with a space theme, and I guess you wouldn’t be wrong. But there’s something really compelling about this game. I’ve been trying to play all of my games from Spiel to review them, but I keep coming back to SETI more than I should because it’s just so fun to play.
What makes SETI work
I’ve been thinking about what makes it so engaging. I think it’s several elements that together create a really compelling experience:
Clear but rich decision space
At the core, you have a simple system – one action and some free actions. You don’t get overwhelmed, but you have many options because:
- Your cards have actions
- You have basic actions you can always do
- Your cards offer variations on basic actions
- You can discard cards to gain things
Even with a small hand of cards, you have lots of possibilities. But those options are clear cut. Usually it’s pretty clear what should be your main action. You look at your cards, look at where you are, look at what direction the game is sending you in, and think “okay this makes sense.”
Strategic depth
Then you start thinking about how to optimize your turn. You consider if you should combine your action with one of your cards because that’s stronger, or if you should just use a basic action instead. You weigh what free actions to take, and whether you should add extra actions to boost your main action. The game gives you these decisions without overwhelming you.
Dynamic gameplay
The exploration keeps the game fresh because things keep changing. The solar system rotates throughout the game, forcing your plans to adapt when planets move. Sometimes you end up landing on a different planet or moon than you planned. When you discover alien species, it changes the game state in interesting ways.
Alien species impact
The alien species add variety without complexity to the game. They work in really different ways from each other, and can change your strategy mid-game when they appear. They’re easy to grasp but still impact your choices in meaningful ways. When you discover them, they give new life to the game you’re playing.
The solo experience
The solo mode impresses me because it does several things right. It starts simple with just four cards and uses familiar iconography from the base game. It provides a real challenge while feeling like you’re playing against an actual opponent rather than just a system. The objectives create tension and meaningful decisions throughout the game.
Overall thoughts
I’m happy with how all these parts come together. Is it the most revolutionary game ever? No, maybe not, but it is definitely:
- Fun and interesting
- Good looking
- Mechanically sound
- Something that pulls you in
It offers something I don’t really have in my collection yet – a great looking and feeling game that also has a theme that works well with the game and a great solo mode.
I love this game. I know I like this kind of game – it was the first game I bought at Spiel for a reason. But I think it will resonate with more people. I think it will make people happy to play this game now and in the future.
SETI pros and cons
Pros
- Visual Presentation
- Clean, crisp design
- Rotating solar system works smoothly
- Clear iconography despite game complexity
- High quality plastic components for most pieces
- Gameplay
- Simple core system (one main action, some free actions)
- Cards have multiple uses
- Clear decision space that isn’t overwhelming
- Dynamic gameplay from rotating solar system
- Alien species change strategies mid-game
- Solo Mode
- Easy to learn with just four starting cards
- Provides real challenge
- Feels like playing against an opponent
- Objective system creates tension
- Bot grows stronger throughout game
- Replayability
- Different alien species combinations
- Random solar system setup
- Multiple strategies to explore
- Cards offer various paths to victory
Cons
- Components
- Credit and energy tokens are cardboard while everything else is premium quality
- Takes up a lot of table space
- Theme
- Requires interest in space exploration to fully appreciate
- Might not appeal to players uninterested in the theme
- Complexity
- Needs a practice game to understand icons
- Solo mode requires tracking several elements
- Some players find the solo mode difficult
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