2021-04-27

An Ancient Space Station Rediscovered

I was having a clear up the other day and found some components stashed in a pile. Not a playable prototype, or even part of one, but a few elements of one of my early game projects that I was trying to build back in 2014, not long after I started this blog, a game that I called Space Station 7, which was about shenanigans between rival peoples/species on a space station that may or may not resemble something that appeared on TV in the 90's. I have the bones of a rules document in my Google Drive, a basic nanDECK script and associated data file, and a few blog posts discussing my thoughts (you can see everything with the SpaceStation7 tag, if you are interested) along with another, partially-written draft that I never finished, but includes some more ideas I wanted to throw in.

After working on this project for a few months I ran out of steam and inspiration and moved onto other things. For instance, it was early 2015 when I first discovered the 24 hour design contest and shifted a lot of my focus to actually getting games to a playable state quickly, which led indirectly to me getting involved in Playtest UK meetups, and the rest is history.

Nothing wrong with prototypes like this.

So I was clearly biting off more than I could chew at the time. I think the game was heading towards being a mid-weight, Euro-ish design that, if I had managed it, would have certainly had way too many weird bits and exceptions. Either than or it would have been utterly dull. 

I have a lot more experience now (though still have plenty of weaknessed) and finding this stuff has reawakened my interest in the project. Having read through the old blog posts and the rules (such as they are), I think there is still something there that I could work with. 

In summary, what we have is:

  • Action is centred on a space station, but players also have their own homeworlds and colonies.
  • Players have "workers" who are essentially ambassadors and other representatives of their species, which can visit various locations each round to undertake actions.
  • Actions are actually triggered by card play, and "workers" have to be in appropriate locations to take advantage of the card plays (e.g. you need a representative in the Council Chamber to partake in debates and votes).
  • Actions take a while to come to fruition and need to "develop" by playing other actions or simply waiting. Some of these actions might be played face-down as covert actions.
  • Play of actions may be "programmed" each round and revealed in stages.
  • Assassinations (of workers/representatives) happen, but the role of the victim is refilled by the homeworld, so they are not lost for ever.
  • Taking direct actions against other players can result in "grudge" tokens being exchanged, indicating tensions between worlds, and can make certain other actions harder or easier.
  • A was also considering a small, semi-random, semi-set deck of cards to provide a series of events that provide a scenario or plot arc for the game, a bit like having an external threat-of-the-week in a TV show to interact with while they go about their regular intrigues and shenanigans.
I'm planning on sleeping on this and seeing if the Enthusiasm Beast takes over. I have plenty of other projects to be working on, but one more can't hurt, can it?


2 comments:

  1. Now that a reboot of Babylon 5 is in the works, you need to get this done ASAP and see if you can get the IP to publish as a tie-in :)

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    1. Haha! You may have a point there, but there's no way I'm going to be hunting down and negotiating an IP!

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