Galileo Galilei

And yet it moves. Try explaining that to the Inquisition.

You are an astronomer working in an age that would rather you were not. Across the game you grind lenses, improve your telescope, chart new planets and unknown star systems, and try to land a scientific breakthrough before obscurantism lands on you first. Tomáš Holek designed it for Pink Troubadour, and by the end the table looks like a working observatory.

The telescope is the action selector: point it at one of five available actions to take that action, and spend the game evolving those actions into stronger versions of themselves. Discoveries need lenses in three colours, so the collecting and the pointing pull against one another the whole way through. The best rule is the Inquisition — inquisitors arrive uninvited and can flatten your reputation, and the actual skill is arranging your affairs so that their visit turns a profit. Fifty minutes to nearly two hours.

Perfect for: Anyone who has had to justify their work to somebody with authority over it and no curiosity about it.

1–4 players | 50–100 minutes | Age 12+

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