Alien Artifacts is a 4X‑style card game that puts each player in charge of an interplanetary faction hunting for knowledge, power, and of course alien loot. Every round you draw three resource cards, each with two different sides; you may use only one side and up to two cards to fund your actions. With those resources you can build ships, research technologies, discover planets, or trade for currency. Powerful ships let you attack alien forces and capture artifacts that grant huge bonuses. Technologies unlock new actions, bonuses and scoring avenues, while explored planets increase your resource pool and grant special abilities. Each card offers two options: a logistical side that provides ongoing empire bonuses, or an operational side that opens a new scoring path and can be triggered multiple times if managed well. The resource engine and variable phase order give plenty of strategic freedom, letting you tune production, storage and assembly as your plan evolves. The game ends when the draw pile is exhausted twice (or three times with more players) and final scoring tallies completed technologies, full sets of four technologies, explored planets, and the highest levels reached in production, storage and assembly. With over two hundred cards, Alien Artifacts delivers many victory routes and high replay value in under an hour.