F$@& Space Alert 2: The Empire Strikes Back

Space Alert Redux

 

I was skeptical about Space Alert.  Mike likes to joke that I don’t like any game, and there is a kernel of truth to that.  However, I think it’s more accurate to say that occasionally we have wildly different ideas on what makes a good game.  Now I’ve seen Mike get really excited about a game before, only to have me say “meh” or “yuck”.  And the most likely culprit is a co-op Adventure Board game (ABG), which I thought described Space Alert.

As I’ve said repeatedly, I do not enjoy the Adventure Board game.  To me they play like a table top version of a “Choose your own Adventure” book.  I lost interest in “Choose your own Adventure” books somewhere around 10 or 11, so I am 30 years removed from liking ABGs.  

Tagging Space Alert as an ABG is a misnomer.  It is in the setting, but there’s no dungeon to explore, and there’s no loot to acquire.  In all honestly, the game it reminds me of the most is Battlestations (BS).

Space Alert is Battlestations stripped down and timed.  You perform similar tasks in Battlestations; power the shields, fire the guns, hit the engine, etc, etc.  But the spaceships in BS are much bigger (only 6 spots in Space Alert and movement is simplified), there are more tasks, and the turns are untimed and sequential like a standard game.

Since we covered the game play already, skipping to what I learned.

So tactics I learned:

You can’t trade cards freely, only at periodic 5 second intervals.  And you don’t have to trade you can just give cards away.  Donations are important, don’t work out a trade just say what you need and take the donation.

Power is indeed critical but you really only need 1 person running the main plant.  That guy really needs to know when the guns are firing and when the other batteries are charging.  You get a maximum of 15 additional power tokens, and that’s more than enough…unless you screw up the timing.

Shields can be great or they can suck; it totally depends on the timing.  At least 2 of the threats killed all our shields (I found these the most challenging threats we faced, not only do they kill the shields, they damage off-bore areas…or areas you think you have dealt with already…)

The bad guys come in staggered.  Really pay attention to the timing!  The final game Mike mentioned, while everyone was handling Center (white axis), Right/Starboard (red axis), I planned no actions because it really looked like those were handled.  Instead I moseyed over to Left/Port (blue axis) because I was sure we’d be hit there too.  So good call Darren.  I was in position to wail on the blue bad guy.  

Review:  Holding off on a numerical review at this point, because I don’t like to judge games after 1 session.  But this part of our NF session was 10/10!   As Mike repeatedly told me how excited he was to play, I forced myself to go into this with an open mind (no adventure games, blech!).  I found myself reminding me of that multiple times last week.   And I am really glad I did.  Not only would my lack of enthusiasm affect the table at large, I was dead wrong in what this game was about.  I dunno.  Maybe I am growing as a person.

Nah.