Space — the final junkyard. Good thing one planet's trash is another planet's treasure! In Junk Orbit, you're captain of your own scavenger ship, picking up space junk and transporting it to any city that will take it. Launch your junk ... uh, *cargo* ... out of your airlock to propel your ship! Race to deliver your cargo as you navigate the orbits of nearby planets and moons! It's astrodynamics for fun and profit! On your turn, carry out these three steps:
1. Launch junk — Choose any one junk tile in your cargo hold and move it away from your ship (clockwise or counter-clockwise, your choice) a number of spaces equal to its numeric value. If it reaches its destination city this way, you have made a remote delivery. Otherwise, it simply comes to rest after moving its full distance. It is also possible to hit an enemy ship with launched junk, causing that opponent to discard one junk tile from their cargo.
2. Move ship — Your ship must now move the same distance that your launched junk did, but in the opposite direction. When your ship reaches a transfer point between location boards, you may choose to switch orbits. If you do, your ship changes direction (from clockwise to counter-clockwise, or vice versa) as it enters the new orbit. If the space your ship lands on is the destination of any junk in your cargo, you have made a direct delivery.
3. Pick up junk — After moving your ship, pick up all junk tiles present in your current city, adding them to your cargo hold. Then, refill your current city with one new junk tile from the corresponding stack (e.g., if at a Mars city, refill from the Mars stack).
Each player has their own ship with a unique ship power that breaks the rules above in some way. The end of the game is triggered when a city cannot be refilled because its stack is empty. When this happens, every player gets one final turn, then players tally the values from all of their delivered junk tiles, and whoever has the highest total wins.
- engaging pickup-and-delivery loop
- solid science-y flavor with accessible rules
- may scale in complexity with player count
- space exploration and resource management
- space logistics with a pickup-and-delivery core
- light, humorous; sci-fi adventure
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- pickup_and_delivery — move cargo between locations following a route
- spatial_mreyments — maneuvering to optimize paths and deliveries
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's the easiest thing in the world i should just get better at my job
- "the storyteller's job isn't for either side to wins almost like a dm in a dnd session; their goal is to make for an epic conclusion"
- i'm elbow deep in bloodstone tidal blades 2 banner festival
- you're basically space Uber or space lift
- cash grab means that you put no or little effort into a product and then you over price it