Have you ever wanted to organize lighter-than-air travel in an alternate Victorian-era setting? No? Well, you’ll want to check this one out anyway. In Grand Central Skyport, you play as the manager of a Skyport in one of four major international cities, and it’s your job to deal with incoming balloons, dirigibles, and other flying machines, matching their preferences to your stations.
This one caught my eye for a number of reasons: the artwork is awesome (drawn by Andrew Bosley, illustrator for games such as Everdell, Tapestry, and Citadels), it’s a rondel-based set collection game, and it’s dealing with an alternate Victorian-era setting. Our friends at 25th Century Games sent us a copy to preview, and we jumped on the chance.
Gameplay Overview
The objective of the game is to create the most efficient Skyport in the world by getting groups of airships to their destinations, delivering a range of goods, and attracting tycoons to invest in your endeavor. During setup, each player places their two starting station cards and two starting airship cards in a row in front of them, alternating between stations and airships. They then draw two airship cards from the middle of the game board. After setup, each player’s turn is divided into four phases: Arrival, Skyport, Tycoon, and Acquire.
In the Arrival phase, you play a single card from your hand and place it in different areas depending on the type of card played. Standard Airships and Stations are placed at the left- or rightmost end of your Skyport, Wild Airships are placed directly on any stack of airships, and Tycoons are placed underneath any open Station. These represent Airships coming in to your Skyport, new Station additions to your Skyport, and Tycoons investing in your Skyport and giving bonuses and special abilities.
During the Skyport phase, you’ll manipulate your Skyport according to the icons at the bottom of the card you just played. Some will allow you to move that card a number of spaces in your Skyport, others will let you switch places with another airship. Wild Airships allow other players to manipulate their own stacks. Moving the Airships around is important, because you want to get the different colors of airships grouped together and adjacent to stations with the same color flags.
In the Tycoon phase, any Tycoons you have played allow you to manipulate your Skyport in different ways, depending on the Tycoon in play. Some allow you to move stacks, some give you extra movement in the next phase, and others allow you to draw an extra card from the Airship deck.
During the Acquire phase, you move your piece around the rondel a number of spaces matching the balloon number on the card you played in the Arrival phase, and then take the action on that space and/or draft the card that is face-up on that space. These actions allow you to draft Tycoons, move stacks of Airships, add new Stations to your hand, or even earn extra points for collecting sets of Airship colors or cargo icons.
The game ends when the “Station Closing” card, which is placed in the last six cards of the Airship deck, is drawn, then each player gets one more turn and then end-of-game scoring is calculated. Scores are based on the number of Airships in each stack multiplied by the number of stars in each stack/adjacent Station (including Tycoons), as well as any bonus points from the Tycoon cards.
Initial Impressions
First of all, I love a good rondel game. Being able to look ahead and plan out your turn based on the cards in hand just scratches a certain itch in my brain. Also, having to place Airships and move them around to the most efficient locations to get points feels so much like actual air traffic control work (minus the stress and anxiety), and is hugely satisfying. And like any game with open drafting, there is also the threat that someone else will get the card you’ve been eyeing before you get a chance to grab it, but even then, missing out on the card will not likely disrupt your plans, as it’s likely you’ll be able to do something with the new card that gets revealed.
Secondly, the art in this game is gorgeous! Anyone who’s played Everdell or Tapestry will definitely recognize the artist’s fingerprints all over this one, and it’s very fitting for the theme. Along with the art, the components are great as well. The player pieces are printed clear acrylic, with the deluxe version including resin miniatures of balloons. We love the acrylic because when you’ve got Andrew Bosley doing your art, you include it in everything you can.
Where to Get It?
Right now, Grand Central Skyport is part of a Kickstarter campaign that includes Wine Cellar (see our preview here), Big Sur, and Sand Art. The campaign ends tomorrow (6/14/24), so keep an eye out for late pledge options if you miss the deadline.
Watch this review on Big Sur from Ruel or this one on Sand Art from Ryan and Bethany to see if they’d be a great fit for you too!