Once in a blue moon comes a euro game that feels... special. There's just something about it that makes it stand out from the crowd. I am not sure that Galactic Cruise is that game - it's too hard a call to make because whether it feels like that to us or not doesn't matter. It's how everyone else receives it.

But I do hope that it is, there's just something cooking in this game that feels simultaneously breezy and crunchy - a good combination! Not to mention the standout production, art, compelling premise - a total package.

When we started working on this review, I asked Elaine, half-seriously, if she thought she could build a human sized rocket out of cardboard. The glint in her eye made me realise very quickly that my half-seriously was her full-seriously.

It took more than a week.

Which seems unreasonably long for something that's meant to be intetionally shoddy. But even a silly thing can take a long time. Especially when you have to cut out and glue together something like forty triangles.

Seal everything with primer and let it dry.

And then paint it and let it dry.

But, eventually we got there.

Yup, that's a "rocket" alright. And here is the kicker - the stupid thing is so big we could barely get it into shot. There's maybe a five second scene where the entire thing is visible in the video, otherwise you can see parts of it and that's it.

But it was worth it! Mostly because we got to make the kind of NPI video we used to make circa 2017-18 where we got to be silly, a little creative and just gush about a game because we enjoyed it. You might even say we've gone retro NPI to keep the theme of retro-futurism going.

And you can obviously watch the result for yourselves. I hope it brings some of that much needed levity.

No Pun Included