Few games grabbed me over the last few years more than Faraway from Catch Up Games.
Short, replayable and addictive at a variety of player counts, this title has become a mainstay of my game nights. The first time for any new player takes a moment to get their head around the playing forward to score backwards mechanic, but once it clicks it becomes a firm favourite for almost everyone I have shown it to.
Now three years on since it’s initial 2023 release, Catch Up Games has provided two small expansions in that time, including the brand new “Under Starry Skies”. Each expansion has built additional quirks into the main deck of cards, offering more scoring opportunities and twists, with neither set being essential to the core experience but also neither drawing so much attention as to detract from what makes Faraway great.
In this expansion you receive Meteor cards, which function in a couple of ways. Most simply, it adds a series of additional point scoring cards using the colour card backgrounds to “unlock” those points in the usual way, or the opportunity to remove a sanctuary card (or two) to add more. So far, so usual Faraway.
The real secret sauce of this set is the values of the Meteor cards themselves, and the numbers which are highlighted on the card in pink. Once played, these cards stay face up during scoring, even if played in the early rounds. Not only that, but any card which also has that digit in its value (a highlighted 7 means that card 27,37, 47 etc…) all stay face up as well. This means that previously hard to obtain points because of their unlock requirements are potentially easier.
These cards are limited however, so in any given round they cannot be relied upon to appear, so situationally very fun, but you could go several games before something like this plays out, particularly in low player counts.
With both expansions in play, the game has a few extra bells and whistles which make an already very replayable game even more so. And at such a low cost point, it is hard to really complain that Under Starry Skies isn’t front and centre every game. On the times it can shine though, it can definitely be the difference maker, so you will want to be aware when those cards enter the draw pool who is picking those up, if not you!
