We have a special shipping job for you. Take a look at this crate. Yes, the one wrapped in shiny tin foil. I need you to get this cargo to Star Base 12 by Saturday night. The most important rule is that nothing should explode during the trip. Why would it explode? Well, there is no specific reason. Just be careful and do not bump it. Also, do not place anything too fragile next to it. Oh, and I will pay you in advance!

Galaxy Trucker: Do What?! is an expansion for players who want more from their trucking adventures. It brings more challenges, more chaos, and more explosions to the table. You do need the base Galaxy Trucker game to play this. A shiny space helmet is not required, but it would certainly add to the fun.

Expansion Overview

The “Do What?!” expansion adds two main features to the game: VIP Astronauts and Missions. You can choose to add one or both of these elements to make your gaming experience better.

VIPs are special passengers with unique needs. When you play with this module, you draw one random card from each of the three colors in the VIP deck. This decides which passengers are available for that game. If you place a cabin on your ship in a way that meets the requirements on a card, you can add a VIP to that cabin. These passengers earn you extra credits. Some even have special abilities that you can use during the flight.

Missions add a big challenge but offer a large payout. They introduce special cargo types and very difficult supercards to the game. The expansion comes with a booklet containing 16 different mission types to choose from. Most missions use at least one of the new cargo tiles, also called payload tiles. Here are the types:

• Heavy cargo: This cargo is hard to destroy, but it slows your ship down.
• Explosive cargo: If this explodes, all tiles next to it will explode too.
• Radioactive cargo: This cannot be placed next to battery tokens, crew figures, or other radioactive cargo.
• Fragile cargo: If a neighboring tile is destroyed, this cargo is destroyed as well.

Many missions also add supercards to the flight forecast deck. These cards are harder than standard cards. They might include extra heavy attacks or asteroids that hit the same side of your ship twice.

The manual also includes optional rules for turn-based ship building. This uses an action points system for players who want a more strategic and thoughtful experience instead of the usual real-time rush.

Game Experience With the Expansion

There are many different kinds of games in the universe. Some make you bend over the board, carefully planning the perfect strategy. Others are best for a quiet evening with a glass of wine. Some games let you relive history and think about our place in the world. Then there are games like this one. They are about hauling fifteen tons of Molotov cocktails through a phantom meteor shower while being chased by space pirates. You might have a ship with twelve battery-powered engines but only two batteries because you were too busy making sure your VIP passenger had a laser cannon.

Galaxy Trucker was already a chaotic game. However, I admit I was sometimes a bit disappointed when the game ended. My ship was often fully intact, or I had only lost one or two tiles. I rarely felt like my ship was truly in danger. This expansion changes that feeling completely. What is really nice is that you can decide how difficult you want the game to be. The missions offer a lot of variety, and you can mix and match them to your liking.

The VIPs add a nice puzzle element to the ship-building process. For example, the Feng Shui Master wants all the pipe fittings to match up exactly in his cabin. The Cautious Rich Widow wants a cabin with a joined shield, cannon, and engine. If you want to satisfy all three VIP types, you will have your work cut out for you. It is exactly the kind of spatial problem that many brains love to solve.

My only complaint here is that some VIP types will be impossible to please if specific cards appear in the flight forecast. For example, some passengers want to be in a cabin with someone else. But if you get an epidemic card, your VIP will die. This is because you can only have one VIP in a cabin, not two like standard astronauts. This was not a huge problem. Sometimes I would just draw a new VIP type to make the game more fun if this happened.

Even with all these additions, the game does not feel too heavy rules-wise. It does not make the game or the setup cumbersome. The payload tiles have red backs, which makes them easy to sort out from the main tiles. Everything was thoughtfully designed to work seamlessly into the main game. It is also compatible with the “Keep on Trucking” expansion.

Final Thoughts

Do you love the chaos and madness of Galaxy Trucker? Do you want even more chaos and madness? If the answer is yes, then you should get the Galaxy Trucker: Do What?! expansion. It is absolutely loads of fun. It adds a lot of variety and new challenges for the disaster-loving masochists among us.

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