Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension – Game Review

Space: the final frontier.

It is potentially littered with nebulae, stars more massive than we can comprehend, planets different (or perhaps similar) to our own, and maybe singularities so dense they capture even time itself.
This is the premise of Gravwell, a game from Cryptozoic and Renegade Games. 2-4 players command spaceships that are trying to escape a singularity that threatens to hurtle them through a wormhole, trap them on the event horizon, or do whatever it is that happens when you travel through a black hole.

Players choose from one of four nice little spaceship figurines and begin their journey trapped in the center of a swirling singularity in space. They draw element cards with numbers and actions on them to determine how far they move. If it is a green card, they move towards the nearest gravity source: either the other player’s ship, or one of the two alien vessels floating in the cosmos.

There are two types of special cards that also allow the player to move away from the nearest gravity source, or to draw all gravity sources several spaces closer to themselves. Turns proceed alphabetically, making strategizing your moves an interesting challenge as you guess what your opponents are going to do. The goal is to reach the edge of the singularity and escape the ninth dimension, as the title implies.

The game is simple and incredibly easy to teach, but full of tense decision-making as players choose which card they are going to play that will fling them forward or backward in space. Never fear—if you realize you’re going to go spiraling back towards the abyss, every player has a single-use emergency stop card they can employ once per round to cease all travel!

Mechanics: 4/5

The rules are simple and thematic, and everything (the drawing, the gravity sources, the hopscotching back and forth over one another) fits in to the world the game is building. The mechanics are refined and approachable, if a little shallow, and have an element of randomness that makes it hard to really use your brain while playing.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing—this game is accessible for a huge audience because of its delightful simplicity and is a very elegant and minimalistic experience, but I don’t think it’s quite living up to its potential.

And most of the shortcomings will come out in the gameplay experience itself.

Gravwell Cards

Gameplay: 4/5

This game has an interesting dynamic to it.

While it is technically competitive—only the first person to reach the edge of the singularity escapes—it functions almost cooperatively. When you’ve played with another person enough times, you get into a kind of groove, a co-strategy that benefits both of you. Because in this game, if you send your opponent way back, you end up having to move backwards as well towards their gravity source.

Playing with their moves in mind makes for a more satisfying, interesting, and entertaining game. That being said, I have a feeling that Gravwell won’t have a ton of replay value.

I can see it being a classic party game to bust out with a new group of people because of how easy it is to learn, but once you’ve played a few times with any group, you really already know how the game is going to go, and the element of randomness really hinders its replay value.

Components: 3/5

The little ships are really nice, and the artwork on everything is vague and nebulous and has a lovely galaxy feel to it. It looks nice on the surface.

Unfortunately, most of the other elements are pretty flimsy. The cards are thin and easy to bend and scuff, which isn’t ideal when you’re constantly flipping them over and shuffling them. The board itself doesn’t lay flat at all, and so the round marker is always either crooked or completely falling over. Additionally, the box just has a little rectangular cutout for you to toss everything into, and if you move the box much when putting it away, cards are everywhere, the ships are tossed about—it’s a hot mess.
I understand finding a balance between cost and substance–this game is only about $25, making it one of the cheapest games of its caliber and genre–but a board that lies flat doesn’t seem like too much to ask, and a simple plastic mold for the components wouldn’t have added a ton of work for the creators.
Since it’s such a simple game with so few components (which I love, by the way), the focus on those components really needed to be higher!

Gravwell Example Cards: Emergency Stop

Summary

Overall, this is a fun game to play, especially the first few times you play with a new number or group of people. It’s easily got a place as a classic party game in my game cabinet, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a favorite. Many of its strengths and weaknesses lie in its components: simple, beautiful, and minimal, but not designed with the care and substance I would have liked. It’s definitely a solid game that you can hardly resist buying for the price point and the fun you’ll have before it wears out its novelty.

About Bergen Adair 15 Articles
Bergen Adair is an avid reader and creator with a serious podcast addiction and a love for all things outer space. She lives in Colorado with her dog and her lifelong game partner Tony.

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