Tabletop_Gaming__April_2019

HOW WE MADEHOW WE MADEHOW WE MADE SPACE CADETS

40 April 2019

it down. It was so easy to just poke my head into

their room and say: ‘Hey, what about this?’”

“We ran into some conict sometimes.

Occasionally I had to put my foot down,

although more often than not it later turned out

I was wrong, which they never let me forget. I

guess that’s just an occupational hazard!”

THE FINAL FRONTIER

e collaborative process ultimately paid

o, and Space Cadets was released in 2012,

meeting with a positive response from fans.

“I was pretty excited about it,” Geo says.

“We got a lot of great press over it. I took it to

the conventions in the US, then we showed it

at the Essen Spiel game fair in Germany, and

just seeing people having fun with something

you’ve created is very gratifying.

“But one of the rst bits of feedback we got

was from people saying: ‘Hey, I’d love to be

able to ght ship-to-ship against another team

of players.’ We had tentatively started working

on some rules for that, but it all got a little bit

crazy – and that’s what led to the successor

game, Space Cadets: Dice Duel.

“It’s a similar concept in that each person

has a dierent station, but it’s kind of

simplied. It’s only a ship-versus-ship, team-

versus-team game, which is very fun.”

Geo returned to real-time design with

his 2017 release Pit Crew, a game about

mechanics rushing to repair cars in the

middle of a high-stakes motor race. He argues

that the approach creates an atmosphere

around the table that turn-based games nd

it hard to match.

“It certainly has a dierent sort of feel

to it,” he says. “You’re trying to create

that anxiety, that rush. Because of my

background in video games, I’ve always tried

to recreate that digital game experience as a

board game. Having real-time elements is a

way to do that, because people are so used

to doing that in a video game. It also helps

people stay focused, because everyone’s

constantly involved in the game.”

He points to other real-time designs as

examples of the format’s advantages.

“I’m a bit fan of Space Alert, and the rst

stages of Galaxy Trucker, by the same designer,

where people are trying to put together their

ship,” he says.

“I think Captain Sonar is really neat

as well. It’s similar to Dice Duel in some

approaches, but one thing it taught me is

that we were worried about players making

mistakes and cheating, whether intentionally

or not. Captain Sonar doesn’t worry about

that at all. Everything’s behind the screens;

people could make mistakes and you’d never

know. Maybe in a tournament setting that’s

important, but when people are just getting

together with friends they’re much more

willing to take the game on its own terms. You

don’t need to make it mistake-proof, and if

you don’t need to do that then it opens up a

lot of fun and interesting possibilities.”

In the years since Space Cadets’ release,

Geo has continued to produce games, and

he’s particularly enthusiastic about some of

his most recent projects.

“My most recently released game was Trade

on the Tigris,” he says. “It’s a trading game with

an open-ended real-time phase where people

are yelling at each other, and I’m very pleased

with that.

“Coming out this year we have Versaille

1919 , which is a simulation of the negotiations

around the Treaty of Versailles at the end of

World War I. We’re not trying to do that in real-

time, though.”

Space Cadets has

received promo

cards and an

expansion, as well

as spin-off Space

Cadets: Dice Duel

Massive

Crystal

+2 to required Tractor

Beam points.

Radioactive

Crystal

At end of Step 4, if player

ship is in same square

take two damage. If

adjacent, take 1 damage.

May be stopped by

shields, does not affect

enemies.

Explodes when success-

fully tractored.

Range 0: 4 damage

Range 1: 2 damage

Range 2: 1 damage

May be stopped by

shields.

Affects enemy ships.

Unstable

Crystal

Two sensor points

required to gain lock.

Superlock not possible.

Stealth

Crystal

Ignore ongoing effects

of Damage Cards at all

stations this turn.

NANOBOTS

1

DU

RING

Extend any Step by 30

seconds.

CHRONO

SKIP

?

AFTER

Blink without inactivat-

ing a Jump Flux card.

WARP

BUBBLE

8

DU

RING