SETI Components Overview and Impressions

When SETIwas announced by CGE, I was pretty excited about it – based on what I’ve read and seen online, CGE has another massive hit on their hands and I’ve been having a blast getting it to the table during this review cycle. Games are all about mechanics, but poor components can hurt a game that is otherwise very good. Let’s take a peak at what comes in SETI and see how it stacks up to the 2024 competition.

There are a lot of cardboard bits in SETI, so get ready to punch. Thankfully, these are high quality cardboard components, which punch out really easily. I’ve been punching a few games lately where the punches resulted in torn pits, so I was a bit concerned that perhaps I was on a bad streak and this would happen again – thankfully, not!

I really enjoyed how the board went together when laid out on the table. When you first open SETI, you might be a bit confused by the curved boards, round boards, etc. as they break from the standard rectangular board that so many companies are using. SETIi, it seems, was going for a unique table presence with the board design, and also wanted to use a design that gave you that thematic space element. I think they killed two birds with one stone here, because yes, I do see space when I look at the setup of SETI, but it also looks phenomenal once it’s all together.

The game board is highlighted by the central, moving galaxy. These various boards with planets and asteroids on them will be spun periodically, which again is not only a cool mechanism you don’t see in a ton of games, but also once again really hammers home that space theme. And once again, it works so well. I was worried that this was going to be a bit gimmicky, that the pieces would fall apart or wouldn’t turn as nicely as the promotional content suggested. Thankfully, I found that this worked splendidly with almost no hiccups. This might be a gimmick in that it’s not used widely in the industry, but SETI knocks this feature out of the park. I love it!

I usually say plastic or wooden pieces are the highlight of any production, but unfortunately these get upstaged by the central galaxy that spins. Still, the plastic components in SETI are not terrible. I always will prefer wooden pieces over plastic pieces, but I’m pretty sure CGE is manufacturing games in Europe and I’m pretty sure they are using recycled plastics for this purpose. CGE has always been, and will likely continue to be, an economically friendly board game publisher, and I really like that.

That’s why it makes it hard to knock their plastic components. They are definitely not my favorite, and the detail on them is a bit muddled at times in my opinion. But they are doing the right thing with their manufacturing, and in my mind that gets them bonus points that puts their components over the top.

SETI is an immensely satisfying game to play, and a solid production goes a long way in making that great experience even better. There will be some who are a bit disappointed by the plastic components in the game, but as an entire package, it’s a great looking game with better than average components across the board!