Celestia: A Little Help (Quick Simple Fun Games)

Late last year, I reviewed the fun press-your-luck game Celestia. What I liked best about the game was the simple game play and beautiful artwork. It also had a ridiculous (in a good way) 3-D aircraft, which was simply used to move the player pawns around. Unnecessary? Yes. Eye-popping? Totally! Recently, an expansion was released to this game, and it is titled A Little Help. It retails for $13.

Review
Unlike most expansions, which give you a large box  that is mostly empty, A Little Help is merely 32 cards in a small playing-card sized box. The contents are 14 "A Little Help" cards, 8 Upgraded Equipment cards, 6 Character cards, 2 Bandit cards, and 2 Mooring Line cards. The Character cards introduces asymmetrical powers to the game and gives each player a one-time use power they can do to break the rules. The "A Little Help" cards help when you are about to crash and the Upgraded Equipment cards let you face two events of the same type, as opposed to just one. Lastly, the Power cards (Bandit and Mooring Line) introduce additional complications the captain must face and overcome.

There is a lot of bang in this little box, which is exactly what you want in an expansion. I was worried that there would be too many unnecessary rules to explain to people, but the only thing you really have to explain is at the beginning when each player gets a character. Everything else shuffles effortlessly into the decks and doesn't extend the game play a bit, as the end goal is still the same. If you are already a fan of Celestia and want to add just a little bit more complexity and depth to the game, then this is an essential expansion.

This game was provided to me for free by Quick Simple Fun Games in exchange for an honest review.