Shackleton Base: Above. Within. Below. Expansion Review

I guess it's only fitting that I'd write a review of an expansion after my expansion newsletter. Shackleton Base was a game that felt purpose-built to be expendable, as its pitch was the asymmetric player powers combined with a suite of corporations that change how the game is played depending upon which three get picked during setup. Is it any surprise that Below. Within. Above. gives you more corps and a player power? It also introduces VP milestone bonus tokens, but that feels more like something that didn't quite make the base game the designer decided to add than anything else. You're buying this box for the corps, so let's just get into those.

Lunar City is the most tame, as it only introduces civilians, astronauts that act as wilds on the main board at the cost of a reputation. Its projects are generally centered around making the civilians wild once they're socketed into player boards. Given how little control you generally have over what astronauts you pick up in the collection phase, I generally find it inoffensive, if a bit bland.

Zenith Works plays with the area majority component of the base game through neutral buildings and enabling multi-story player buildings. I'm not angry about another corp adding an incentive to build HQs, and the neutrals can be dropped in ways that simultaneously make rows you control more appealing and block other players from contesting you. Definitely my personal highlight of the expansion.

I'm more mixed on Undermoon, which lets you drill for resources and temporarily block part of an exploit at the cost of reputation. It's the only one that I'd steer newer players away from including, as opportunistic blocking of a resource someone is woefully short on can effectively end their game. I'm here for it. It's a form of interaction that modern design tends to steer clear of that I'd like to see more often, but there's a reason for that aversion, as many players will ragequit or become otherwise salty at de facto elimination in a euro. To each their own.

For a game like Shackleton that almost demands repeat plays to just gain systems adequacy (forget mastery), I'm happy to see all the avenues for variance and player interaction added in BWA. Granted, not all the new corps are going to be a hit with everyone, but there's no board game police that'll confiscate your copy if you aren't actually random, and pick and instead choose what you include in your games.