Post by GIrene on Sept 9, 2011 16:12:55 GMT -5
So I should be coming into possession of this rare 1989 boardgame from the original creator/writer.
But I've been introduced to it and seems like its a nice competitive "beer and pretzels" game (i.e. not superbly rules intensive).
Essentially you recreate the space race from 1956 until the moon landing. Obviously when you think about it, there is probably a good amount of planning involved (and there is).
Essentially players (or groups of players) run 4 factions representing the US/USSR/Generic Asia/Generic Europe Space Programs as they compete to be the first in well... EVERYTHING!
You get a yearly budget that is spent on acquiring programs and assets, research to increase the safety margin of your equipment (VERY IMPORTANT) and each year is played out in two turns. Eventually someone is going to want to launch first. This is proclaimed a minimum of a turn ahead and occurs at the end of the next turn. If players wish they can spend more money and take safety hits to "rush" their launch to be first.
Successfully completed missions yield you prestige points (score) and a bigger budget. Being first to do ______ yields the most prestige. But the missions must be done in order (or you take MASSIVE safety hits), you can't do a lunar landing straight off, you gotta be the first to put a satellite up first, first man in space, first spacewalk, first capsule-capsule dock, etc.
Ah but there is a catch. Things can go wrong... horribly horribly, terribly wrong. If you roll outside of your safety factor you have to roll failures, it can be minor things such as a delay or countdown abort (which still allow the mission to continue) to catastrophic things like rockets exploding on the pad, capsules and satellites burning in the atmosphere, astronauts exposed to vacuum, etc.
First nation to the moon (strategically) WINS!
The small community which follows this game has done a bit to expand it and there was even a (very hard) computer game based on it called "Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space" which is available as freeware (google it). Gives a feel for the mechanics of the game but the AI is ridiculously tough.
So I hope to snag this and run it as some side entertainment on a future games day/night.
