Space Apps
The NASA International Space Apps Challenge is the largest global annual hackathon. This two-day event provides an opportunity for participants to utilize NASA's free and open data and its Space Agency Partners' space-based data to address real-world problems on Earth & in space.
Space apps can also portray imagined future scientific or technological advances, major social or environmental changes, and life on other planets.
1.
Space App List
Starting with one of the limpest gaming experiences in my long and varied history, all four us found this a grind. It was a long time ago and maybe we'd be better equipped for it now. Certainly we did ourselves no favours by attempting to learn it as a group, rather than - as we would now - have at least one person work out the gist by themselves and present it to the other players. But all I can recall is three hours of if/but type rule referencing before we gave it up in favour of something fun.
2.
Almost ultimate, in that it's almost ultimately last place. While it doesn't quite live up to its own hyperbole, Astronauts does a decent job of teaching our solar systems planets and moons. But in terms of fun it's kinda clunky, with periods of stasis and luck-of-the-draw destinies.
3.
This is more like it. A genuinely new experience for me in that where you roll your dice was as critical, if not more critical, than what you roll. To be honest this should really be in the theme-not-relevant list above, but at least it was attempting to be different. It's for kids, and some simplicity is to be forgiven, but HABA have done a lot better.
4.
The basic thrust of Alien frontiers I like - roll and assign dice, fight over area control. But here come the cards, which bog down individual turns and overall game speed/fun/dynamism with the kind of this-does-this-then-that-does-that hokery that gets boring rather quickly.
5.
The first of the big hitters. Perhaps not a space game per se, it still feels flavourly science-fictional and is set in the future with an intriguing/pasted on (delete as appropriate) time-travel mechanic. Clever, long, fiddly, maybe not actually fun though.
6.
See Anachrony. I prefer the look and theme here and kind of admired it whilst at the same time kind of getting over euro games. Although to be fair to Black Angel it was far from the only culprit in the whole cleverness-trumps-actual-fun thing. Undoubtedly clever, but ehhhhh.
7.
Nothing like Cosmic Run, this is a roll and write for two and a bit fiddly with it. It's clever and engaging, but I like roll and writes to be super-simple.
8.
I just don't have much to say about these. They're engaging while you play them, to be sure, but when I pack them away I never think I can't wait to play that again. I respect the sleekness here and how they're genuinely a 'bigger' game than the box suggests, though.
9.
An undoubtedly clever area-control thing in space that took it's lead from the COIN system, but in a more accessible way. We all liked what it promised but none of us are actually avid COIN fans; it's a system that seems to inspire fantastic dynamics, but also fabulous analysis paralysis. Not knowing the IP didn't help either.
10.
A strangely dry beast with a really engaging central mechanic of managing economies/taking risks but an attendant story that left me, conversely, disengaged. Really, if I was thinking a little bit harder about this list, it might drop a few places.
11.
Diverting solo survive-the-gauntlet space mission. It's nice, but not much more than that, with a lot of decisions self-evident.
12.
A little boost for nostalgia here, as we played this a whole bunch in the olden days. A nice luck-pusher with a bit of laughter and dickery. Probably just a little worn-out to be further up the list.
13.
Race never truly grabbed me like it did so many people, but I have fond memories of playing it over relaxing lunchtimes with Joe. Like a lot of games, there's an evident canniness to it that nonetheless fails to immerse me in the world in a way I really like - I'm managing icons rather than anything else. But clever without being overbearing.
14.
Although this didn't grasp hold of my lapels either, there is something tangibly enjoyable about rolling dice and that physical addition just edges it in front of Race. I can concede that Race is the more elegant of the two, but give me the choice and I'd go for this one.
15.
A high-octane solo game, where your ship is disintegrating while time literally runs out: Lux is played with a timer. I enjoyed my few plays without ever quite getting hooked on it (see Assembly)
16.
Beta Colony might be doing better in the (BGG) rankings if the presentation wasn't so weirdly old-school. I rather like the board myself, but there's no denying your average BGGer may be focused to a greater degree than I am on the card stock and admittedly underwhelming box cover. But it's a more-than-decent euro-in-space with some feisty area-control interaction.
17.
My mild ambivalence about deck-building prevents it from climbing higher than 19th. It was fun, but - I only played it once, so maybe the placing is a disservice to Core Worlds. Or maybe repeated play would have pushed it down. The beauty of pointless lists! There is something about deck-building for me that fosters ambivalence: I enjoy deck-builders while I play them, but they rarely inspire a hunger in me for more.
18.
A friendly family game where everyone is trying to save as many of their people as they can before the planet explodes/implodes, propelling them into space via trampolines and suchlike. It's a bit Take That-y, but has a nice time-running out mechanic.
19.
I really like he fact Beyond the Sun is doing something different - shining its spotlight unashamedly on the tech-tree of civ advancement rather than the ostensible goals they service. It looks nice too. The downside of this very gamer-y approach though, is that I don't feel like I'm out there in the firmament, popping pills and pooping in space nappies, which is of course what we all aspire to, right? Like Race, I'm largely looking at the iconography.
20.
Good stupid fun. Maybe it outstays its welcome a little? And maybe nostalgia is doing a job here too. But yay, lots of fond memories here.
21.
Stupid fun combined with civ expansionist tendencies. Ascending Empires takes engine-building and marries it to flicking small discs around the table. Even if the game can go on a bit and it never feels like you can do enough on your turn, kudos to that.
22.
More stupid fun, as you pilot hard to control ships in a race around the galaxy like malfunctioning bumper cars. I am absolutely terrible at this but it always raises a number of laughs.
23.
I always enjoyed Terraforming Mars a lot, as it feels like a euro with combative elements, as passive-aggressive as they might be. And I don't mind a bit of randomness in the cards, albeit the 'bigger' the game is I feel the more punitive these otherwise-funny swings of fate can be. It might be higher in the list if I didn't feel like it went on a bit too long.
24.
Incongruous as it may be, I'm not sure I want to play Leaving Earth again - it's very mathy in a way that I struggle with, and otherwise doesn't offer a lot in terms of gameplay. But it's extremely immersive in a way not many other games manage, and it looks amazing.
25.
Nestling just outside the top ten are sister games Assembly and Sensor Ghosts, probably pissing off Terraforming Mars with the fact Assembly in particular is pretty much an abstract. But I found it an extremely addictive one, with just enough theme for me to feel like there was more at stake than the cards themselves. Sensor Ghosts, which follows on narratively is probably a little abstract to be truly immersive, this is still a fun, tricky, solo game. It's just as tense - more tense, perhaps - but loses a few places due to the fiddly moving/flipping card mechanics.
26.
Like Leaving Earth this one has a certain ambivalence to it. Do I want to spend 6-8 hours playing TI over and above an alternative that could include several of my higher-ranked games, a meal, a conversation and a small walk? Possibly not. But when I have made that (small s) sacrifice, I have really enjoyed stepping into this world. The hours are many, but they're not long: there's a lot going on but I'm invested in it the whole way through and as an 'event' game, I'm not sure there are any better.
27.
Just one of those hours could be spent playing the best deduction game I've experienced. Less clunky than clue, half as long as Mystery of the Abbey, five times as immersive as Cryptid, my initial wariness of using an app was overcome on the first play. Players begin with hidden knowledge, pick up more hidden knowledge, are forced to share hidden knowledge (or expensively bluff) in a collaborative/competitive search for the titular planet.
28.
Once upon a time this would have been number one. It's great; from the sense of exploration to the various tactics available to you to the baked-in destination of a massive punch-up at or near the end of the game. Minus a point for epic fiddliness of set-up/packing away, which can feel like a penance.
29.
Stupid fun #3. The mothership is sending down it's baby attackers, and like a cardboard phoenix from the flames of Space Invaders, you the players must defeat them. By flicking spherical orbs of card from atop a wooden tower. It's bonkers, but I've encountered no other co-op game where everyone roots for each other quite as much, with an almost-guaranteed dramatic finale.
30.
Speaking of dramatic finales, Sol manages to brazenly turn an abstract with abstract mechanics (ships dance in formation to create things) into a superbly tense and highly interactive fight for the most energy to propel you to safety when the star finally collapses. For me it's brilliance is in how the game ends - almost everything you do amounts to a wager on how much time there is left.
31.
Immersion 10/10! If Sol speaks of a weirdly geometry-laden bunfight, SpaceCorp's only real interaction is through the medium of getting it first: beating other players to far flung destinations and exploring what's there with (one hopes) mostly-honourably-gained rewards; grabbing cards they need with greedy astronaut-begloved hands. The brilliance here is the journey; starting in the lowly home planet and moving out into the cosmos, one increasingly gigantic step at a time, all the way powered by a super-simple card system. Turns are fast; contracts are met, time runs out.
32.
Top level stupidness in a (sadly only 2-player) flicking game that saw off stiff competition to be mine and Steve's favourite game of the gaming weekend back when those were still a thing. Home-spun but polished components and a home-spun but hilarious game, I feel this deserves far more traction than it's getting. Maybe it's too particular to my specific tastes though; like Root, nobody (other than Steve) in my group has latched onto it the way I have.
33.
Also home-spun and as far as I'm aware without a publisher, Orbit feels like something from 1976; a discovery that as well as Sid Sackson others were also making interesting, family-weight games. Orbit isn't without some (tiny) fringe issues, but as a story of the space race told in an hour it's got pretty much everything: asymmetry between players, simple rules, lovely components and a puzzle of moving parts (planets v rockets) that gives you just enough of a cognitive workout to feel like when you finally land on Neptune, it's a real achievement.
34.
Ah, Quantum. What can I say? Both a race and a battle. Strategic and (more) tactical. Canny, nasty, occasionally brutal, subject to the whims of fate. Occasionally lop-sided swift endings. Sometimes more attritional, longer battles. Always: surprises, shrewd moves unanticipated by hostile players. This has been a top ten game since I first played it, and after 40 or so visits I simply don't see that changing.
35.
So here we are, with a number one space game that leaves a lot of people fairly lukewarm, no doubt. A sandbox game in the biggest sandbox there is, with opportunity for compromised rule-abiding behaviour or more alluring lawlessness. Pick up and deliver; trading, missions, races, exploration, mindless violence, mindful violence: it's got it all. Risk! Luck-pushing! Harpoons! You want dice? We got dice! In fact the dice are what some people object to with the roll-and-move mechanic in particular understandably raising eyebrows. But if it's a mess, it's a wonderful mess, Eclipse at Christmas, Glengarry Glen Ross in space, a bonkers bananas Indiana Jones in a spacesuit of an adventure that feels like it was made with love; a designer painstakingly crafting the game they wanted to play themselves.