Yes, I know, another upcoming digital card game, but GalaCollider is truly trying to carve its own niche space by fusing a digital card game and a space exploration game with the hope of creating an accessible game that boasts deep strategy without the micromanagement. The developers claim the game fuses the conquest of 4X games with the deckbuilding and drafting elements of digital card games into a new genre that picks the best of both worlds. The game has some very interesting ideas from what I can see so far. You play as one of the asymmetrical factions of the game, and you try to conquer the galaxy using your cards. There are three ways to win: either through expansion, by capturing the other players’ home worlds, or by contesting all of their planets.

When you play cards onto the map, they become 3D models of ships and planetary structures (with the possibility that future updates will also include ground forces, spies, and heroes), and once on the map, you can move them around. You use them to explore and colonize various worlds, and the battles are tactical and simultaneous, which sounds intriguing since we are in a world of mostly turn-based card games. Since they are simultaneous, GalaCollider matches can involve more than 2 players without the game’s length increasing. When it comes to your deck, you build that and a tool box of technology before you play, and during your game you can modify your strategy by purchasing and changing your deck using your tech-pool. The game will include turn timers and even an asynch mode that will let you play at your own pace while retaining the simultaneous nature of the turns.

GalaCollider definitely sounds like an intriguing take on the digital card gamegenre, and as one who’s played plenty of 4X games (probably for more hours than he should), I’m interested to see how the fusion of the two genres will end up playing. It definitely should feel like a different game from all the other digital games on the App Store, and that alone probably makes it worth trying out. The game will be free-to-play and cross-platform, so you should be able to play with your PC and Android friends. The game is still in Alpha, so I don’t see it coming out any time soon, but I’ll be keeping an eye out. Check out the videos to see how it looks and plays.