Space Beans

From: Rio Grande List Price: $10 Players: 2-6 Playing Time: 15-30 minutes  Type of game: Card Skill level: 2 Complexity: 3  Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 23, April 2000

Perhaps this game would have received a warmer reception if it had been given a different name. Marketing people clearly felt that calling it Space Beans would sell more copies, but connecting it to designer Uwe Rosenberg’s smash hit Bohnanza creates high expectations in players’ minds. Under such conditions, the game can’t help but disappoint.

Yes, you’re collecting sets of beans again. And you can collect up to two sets at once. The similarity ends there. The illustrations for the seven types of beans parody science fiction standards like Klingons, Darth Vader, and Alien, but without any of the charm of the images in Bohnanza. Each card bears a value from one to nine.

All players but one start with a hand of cards. On his turn a player must plant at least one bean, and may plant more as long as they’re all the same type. Before long a player will have two sets of beans in front of him— a public one face up, and a secret one face down. Each set must consist of only one type of bean. As soon as a player plants a bean which doesn’t match either of his sets, he must cash in his public set and reveal his secret set. The newly-planted bean(s) begin a new secret set. A player can also choose to cash in either set voluntarily.

There are two catches. The first is that sets only score if at least one card in the set has a value equal to the number of cards in the set. If this condition is met, the player keeps that card in a scoring pile and discards the rest. If not, the set is completely worthless and all cards in it are discarded.

The second catch is that at the end of his turn, a player passes the remainder of his hand to the left. Players are allowed to draw two cards before planting, and usually take advantage of that option when the cards they’re passed don’t match what they’re looking for. The real dilemma comes when there’s one card you want, but two or more cards your left-hand neighbor wants. Do you take what you need and feed your opponent, or do you keep his cards and start collecting them yourself as your new secret set, unbeknownst to your opponent?

The game ends when someone accumulates thirty points.. The strategy in Space Beans is negligible, and the game is often won by the player who most often draws what he needs. The passing system fails to produce the intended tension, since the best choice is usually clear. The most interesting decision points are when you must choose between cashing out for 4 points or pushing your luck and hope to nab enough cards to make your 8 score. With three players the game is a fair diversion, but with five or six it moves too slowly for such a piece of fluff.