Xalvage is a sci-fi trading, exploration, and combat boardgame. Players select a starship and move it along spaces on the board, collecting Discovery tokens and revealing encounters with other ships or special events. Ships can be friendly and traded with, like science crews or other merchants, or hostile like aliens and pirates. Events can be things like losing a turn from a faulty hyperdrive or discovering a new element. Players get rewarded (or lose) salvage from these encounters. Salvage can be used to buy upgrades to their ship, increasing firepower, shields, maneuverability, and so on. Combat is played out with rolling different dice. Xalvage points are won at the end of each fully explored sector, and are counted by adding up Discovery tokens. At the end of the game, whoever has collected the most Xalvage points wins.