Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Star Scrappers: Cave-in is a game for 2-4 players who take roles of Galactic entrepreneurs, rival mining bosses who compete in this difficult, sometimes even merciless industry. Your job is to excavate the Hexis crystals.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Deck / Bag Building
Add new pieces during play to improve the cards, tokens, or dice drawn later.
Modular Board
Build the play area from interchangeable sections that vary between games.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Set Collection
Gather related items that become more valuable when scored together.
Take That
Direct negative effects at selected opponents.
Read the full game description
Star Scrappers: Cave-in is a game for 2-4 players who take roles of Galactic entrepreneurs, rival mining bosses who compete in this difficult, sometimes even merciless industry. Your job is to excavate the Hexis crystals. The goal of the game is to get as many victory points as possible before the mine collapses! To overcome your competition you will have to recruit mercenary laborers, use their skills, and collect precious artefacts. However, you’ll have to keep looking over your shoulder! Your competition is only waiting for a chance to buy your trusted men off and steal the bounty from under your nose! Every turn you can perform two out of four possible actions: recruiting mercenaries sending mercenaries to collect crystals sending mercenaries to find artefacts using special action of a chosen mercenary Star Scrappers: Cave-in can be described as a "discard-building game". With every action, players put mercenaries into their discard. Now, the order of the discard also matters because your top discarded card gives you a special action at the beginning of your next turn. But beware! If your discard grows too interesting, another player may forfeit their entire turn just to steal the discard from you! The player that collects most Victory Points wins, and that can be achieved in few ways: each crystal gives some VP some artefacts boost your crystal collection sets of fractions' symbols protect your fraction trophy and try to steal other players trophies Last but not least, remember – it doesn’t matter who is the best miner but the best schemer!