Deep Space D-6 Review

Welcome On Board Captain!

You are the captain of the UEF and whilst on a routine patrol of the Auborne system you received a distress call. You immediately warp to the location and find out that it is a trap. Now, you and your crew must work together to survive until a rescue fleet appears. Deep Space D-6 is a solo only dice rolling, dice placement game. Each turn you roll a set of dice representing your Crew. With these dice you assign them to various sections of your ship based on the matching die face. You may need to recharge your shields, repair your hull, fire your lasers and return units from your infirmary. After assigning crew dice and performing their respective actions, new threats appear from the threat deck. The threat dice is rolled and any threats with the matching pip value are activated.

The player keeps repeating this sequence until all threat cards have been drawn from the deck and there are no external threats available. The players then win the game. If a player’s shields and hull reaches zero then players lose the game.

Final Thoughts

Deep Space D-6 is a solo only small box dice game. You are rolling a set of dice each round, assigning these to various actions and fending off threats. What do I think of Deep Space D-6, let's find out.

Component wise, you get a relatively large deck of cards, a few dice and a few ship player boards. It might not seem a lot but the gameplay is very good fun. There is a ton of replayability in the ship boards. They are all different, with different actions and abilities. This keeps the game fresh. I love the choice in the ship boards.

With many dice games, you are at the mercy of the dice. However, there are often ways to mitigate the dice rolls, by either copying dice or re-rolling. This goes a long way to reducing the luck in the die but sometimes you do get stuck with a duff turn. It is not a huge issue but worth mentioning and I never felt like I lost the game because of a not so exciting turn.

The actions you take can repair your shields/hull & fire lasers for the most part. These will keep your ship healthy, but also reduce the threats. Once a threat is reduced to zero it is removed from the game. Each threat card has a pip value (or values) associated with it and an effect. At the end of the round when the threat die is rolled the threats with the matching value will trigger. It is a very simple system and works well. You can prioritise the more damaging treats or the threats that are easier to remove. The game gives you the freedom to do this and it is upto you, as the player, to figure this out.

Deep Space D-6 is quick playing, has a decent amount of replayability and is fun to play. I have been having a great time with the game and it will probably stay in my collection for a long time. It is ideal for when I have 30 minutes to spare and want to throw some dice.