May 4 I played Astroforce, which as you may know is the updated, IP-less version of Star Wars: The Dice Game. Your crew of Han Solo, Tricia McMillan, Private Vasquez, Richard B. Riddick and Spock has to survive a five year mission for the Rebel Alliance.
Even though the IP was too costly to keep for this commercial version, the source still shines through in artwork, character names and flavour text. For example, this game I played aboard the mining vessel ASV Canterbury, that is clearly inspired by the Continent-class crawler Red Dwarf from our beloved nonad saga.
I played on hard difficulty, and was punished for my overconfidence by failing already during the second mission. It had me taking the ship to a dock for repairs. How can you even fail that, right? 🙄 I received confirmation from Disney my adventures won't be turned into the 10th and final movie.
It was good fun playing. I like how Astroforce has taken the mechanics of Deep Space D-6 and uses them for an hour long thematic adventure that will keep you engaged and at the edge of your seat. I also appreciate the humour. Think Clank! In! Space!, but British.
Also, I just love science fiction. The grand adventures, the thought experiments and predictions. It's great to see how back in the seventies George Lucas envisioned life on a space ship. It's cool to see how many things he got right (you may need to zoom in on the picture, I swear it was readable when I uploaded it).
Expect a longer post on this cool game in Table Presence later.
P.S. it isn't really based on the Star Wars IP. Shhh.
P.P.S. I think Star Wars is 😴
Those wars in the stars are so boring
I’d much rather go out exploring
Use my armed forces
To plunder resources
Then sell off the goods for end scoring
Still waiting on my copy in the US. 😢😢😢