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Space Commander is a wargame of spaceship FLEETS actions. It's rules are simple enough to be understood by anyone, but give a good depth of strategy and involve different races with different skills and ships.
The game wants to depict BIG fleet battles, with all the clichè of sci-fi: big capital ships, carriers, flight of fighters and starbombers, elite pilots, heroes, missiles, torpedoes, black holes, big spinal cannons, and so on.
All this while keeping a profound strategy and some sensation of realism and real choices.
RULES:
A game usually consists of 2 factions/fleets, each controlled by one or two "Commanders". Every Commander has his own set of "order cards", and his own Flagship: all the other ships of the fleet are "shared" and can be called in combat by all commanders of his own faction.
Before the battle starts, every commander chooses and assigns special equipment/technologies to his faction ships: these represent a fundamental difference in gameplay of every faction, giving special skills to their ships.
Every ship in the game is depicted by a "Ship card", wich keeps the skills and data of that type of ships: there can be several ships of the same type in battle, and they need only ONE card for all of them.
Every turn, a Commander play an "Order card" to order one "ship-card": all the ships belonging to that class (example, all the Fireshield destroyers) could then move and fire. If the order comes from a flagship, she can order 2 different ship-cards (including his own), if there is at least one ship of that card near.
The ordered cards get rotated a bit to show it has been activated and cannot be ordered again the next turn (so if there are 2 commanders and one requests for the carrier to act, you cannot order it the next turn but could only "reset" it to active status).
Order cards could also used to activate special abilities on ships (and special equipments) and also have a secondary "effect" and could be discarded to get that effect.
In this way, there are always crucial decisions during the game, like: will I discard a card now to get that missile barrage on my enemy and support the other commander attack, or I will keep it to have more options the next turn.
The game almost never falls in a "cannot order anything" scenario, and a commander can expect to order the units he needs most of the time. But if he spens a great deal of cards to support his attacks, his decision could be limited in the next turns, while he builds back his "hand" of cards.
The firing is very simple, based on normal six sided dices rolls. Very rarely one roll is fundamental, since u can always maneuver and use skills to get the best rolling options for your attack.
The game has several scenarios already, and more races and scenarios are being developed/tested while we WAIT FOR AN EDITOR (the game is not yet published, just my homemade copy for now and some playtesting copies around).
- Fantastic player aid card and clear map
- Very easy entry point for a roll-and-write
- High replayability with different galaxies/maps
- Solo mode available for practice and comparison
- Lively puzzle with changing dice each round
- Requires printing and laminating/contact paper for repeated play (practical for at-home setup)
- Non-crossing lines constraint can complicate planning and slow down play
- space exploration and planetary network-building with scoring based on connections and control
- space, a galaxy with planets and suns, represented on a dry-erase playing surface
- abstract, puzzle-like with clear scoring rules and upgrade choices
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — A blue zone can be secured by surrounding it with lines, yielding bonus ships as rewards.
- blue zone control — A blue zone can be secured by surrounding it with lines, yielding bonus ships as rewards.
- Dice Rolling — The game uses six six-sided dice each round to determine available actions and connections.
- End Game Bonuses — Players track bonuses and use marks (boxes around bonuses) that are spent to spend the bonuses, which then get crossed out.
- end-of-round bonuses and tracking — Players track bonuses and use marks (boxes around bonuses) that are spent to spend the bonuses, which then get crossed out.
- Network/Route Building — Players draw lines from planets to other planets or suns, with the constraint that lines cannot cross existing lines.
- pattern/route building with non-crossing lines — Players draw lines from planets to other planets or suns, with the constraint that lines cannot cross existing lines.
- penalties for unused/uncircled elements — For each die that cannot be applied or for uncircled connections, a negative point is incurred, adding a punitive element to incomplete networks.
- round-based die reduction — At the end of each round, one die is removed from play, reducing future options.
- set collection and area scoring — Points are earned for connecting suns and planets, with planets contributing points when fully connected and suns contributing based on their connections.
- upgrades via value targets — The number five on a die represents upgrades for the ship, which provide bonuses during play.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Space Commander, fantastic player aid card, really nice map, super easy to get into, but a real puzzle.
- This is a nice little puzzle.
- Lovely replayability
- Different galaxies. You're going to have different maps that you play with.
- The dice are always going to change.