Impulse

About this board game

Impulse is a quick-playing 4X space game for 2–6 players, with games lasting about 60 minutes. Explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate across a hex-shaped galaxy built from cards.

Each card in the playing area features an action, a color, and a size from 1 to 3. The cards also connect along their six edges, creating a changing map that begins face down. Every player controls a Home card on a corner of the galaxy, with two transports and a cruiser ready to act.

The shared Impulse is a line of cards that changes every turn. On your turn, add a card from your hand to the Impulse, optionally use a technology action in your playing area, then optionally resolve all actions in the Impulse. Finally, draw two cards. As the Impulse reaches its maximum size, older cards fall away, so every player must add actions that help them without giving opponents too much benefit.

• Transports activate sectors they enter and can boost actions through their presence.
• Cruisers patrol sectors of space and destroy opposing transports.
• Minerals matching an action’s color can increase its numerical value.
• Cards offer one of ten possible actions, including commanding ships and building cruisers.

Actions have a printed number that can be increased through boosts, allowing commands such as moving ships or building at home to become more powerful. Score points by destroying enemy ships, controlling edge spaces on the central card, and taking other scoring actions through cards.

In Impulse, every card added to the shared action line can reshape the opportunities available to the entire table. The first player to reach 20 points wins.