The Training Of A Space Ship Crew

What do you get when you combine the co-op appeal of Pandemic, the uncertainty of moves of Roborally, and the taunting voiceover of Omega Virus?  you get my new favorite game.  Granted, I have several new favorite games a year but this one is amazing.

Space Alert is a cooperative play game from Czech designer Vlaadi Chvatil, the same designer of Galaxy Trucker.  It is a fully immersive, totally unique gaming experience, that tows a fine line between boardgaming and roleplaying.

One of the things I’ve found so immensely entertaining so far is that I have just as much fun training a crew as I do actualy playing the game.  We had 5 other people come over, so including myself there was one too many people to play.  I decided to take on the role of the instructer for “How to be a space cadet in 7 easy lessons”  The game comes with a standard dry rulebook, but also comes with a Storyline stlye “handbook” that presents the rules broken down into ever-increasing difficulty levels.  It’s the best way to teach people how to play.

So I became the academy instructor.  Using some of the lines from the book, and going impromptu as well.  I got some laughs and gererally enjoyed hamming up the game and getting the atmosphere out there.  I’m of the opinion that theme and story are crucial to enjoying this game, and I wanted to create the environment as well as just teaching the mechanics that would save their ship.

Well, the first mission was a resounding……..failure.  In no fault to the teacher of course.  I found I had so much fun watching them play, and reliving my own rookie “red shirt” mistakes.  I gave them a break (and me something to do) by taking on the role of the communications officer and reading the threats to them as they came out.

So we played about 6 games of it that night, and have gone through the basic simulations.  None of us has yet to take on the full game with internal threats and the like, but we’re getting there.  There are online resources at Boargamegeek.com that can track experience, and gives people rankings based on their gameplay.  I’ve set them up for our “crewmembers” so we can have an ongoing campaign.

This game provides a totally unique gaming experience.  you feel like you’re frantically trying to be the little Dutch boy poking your fingers in the dam, desperatly trying to not let all Hell break loose.  Only to find that you have been pushing the weapons button for multiple turns, but your teammate tripped and wasn’t able to give you any reactor power, so now you’ve wasted three turns while a meteor is crashing towards your head.

I love Space Alert.  I’m not sure if a video review is a possibility becasue of the complexity, but If I can find a way, I’ll make a way.

Thanks for reading

Brian

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