03-25-2011, 02:12 AM
Well, enough people seem to be mentioning the Grand Ol' Game, I thought it deserved its own thread.
Originally designed by Richard Allan Lloyd as a science-fiction version of Tribes of Crane, StarMaster was originally run by Schubel & Sons, eventually being bought back by the designer, who started a new company, KSK Concepts, to run it.
StarMaster was a turn-based, human moderated game. Each player started with a race (which the player designed, picking parts and attributes from a list, with each race getting 300 "bio points") and a homeworld. There were three different technology types (cold, heat, and chemical), which determined the sorts of weapons and other technology the race had.
Key to the game was technological advancement. Each "generation" of technology allowed the weapons and other systems of a player's ships to be ten times as powerful as the previous generation. This was accomplished by turning in economic vouchers, which were in turn generated through trade. Eventually, these economic vouchers (photocopied on goldenrod paper, and punched through with a spaceship-shaped punch to foil counterfeiting) were simply traded or gifted from older and more advanced races to new races, allowing them to rise in generation very swiftly.
The map was three-dimensional, with several different galaxies, such as the Central, Northeast, and Sixth Lower.
Turn sheets allowed players to move up to 6 fleets. Additional turn sheets could be purchased and included with a player's turn. Rumor has it that certain empires' turns ended up costing hundreds of dollars each. There were also Special Action sheets that allowed players to do things not covered by the ordinary rules, such as exploration of ruins, setting up special research projects, etc.
There was a background set up for the game, with the older races having dizzying levels of technology, but relatively small empires. The Eastern (communist) galaxy was in the process of invading the Central, as was the Northern galaxy (ruled by amoeboid races).
The game was eventually acquired by the original designer, who ran it through a company called KSK Concepts (named for a character from the background of the original game, Khan Sigma Khan). It was converted from a wholly human-run game to a computer-assisted game, and was run for several years.
Originally designed by Richard Allan Lloyd as a science-fiction version of Tribes of Crane, StarMaster was originally run by Schubel & Sons, eventually being bought back by the designer, who started a new company, KSK Concepts, to run it.
StarMaster was a turn-based, human moderated game. Each player started with a race (which the player designed, picking parts and attributes from a list, with each race getting 300 "bio points") and a homeworld. There were three different technology types (cold, heat, and chemical), which determined the sorts of weapons and other technology the race had.
Key to the game was technological advancement. Each "generation" of technology allowed the weapons and other systems of a player's ships to be ten times as powerful as the previous generation. This was accomplished by turning in economic vouchers, which were in turn generated through trade. Eventually, these economic vouchers (photocopied on goldenrod paper, and punched through with a spaceship-shaped punch to foil counterfeiting) were simply traded or gifted from older and more advanced races to new races, allowing them to rise in generation very swiftly.
The map was three-dimensional, with several different galaxies, such as the Central, Northeast, and Sixth Lower.
Turn sheets allowed players to move up to 6 fleets. Additional turn sheets could be purchased and included with a player's turn. Rumor has it that certain empires' turns ended up costing hundreds of dollars each. There were also Special Action sheets that allowed players to do things not covered by the ordinary rules, such as exploration of ruins, setting up special research projects, etc.
There was a background set up for the game, with the older races having dizzying levels of technology, but relatively small empires. The Eastern (communist) galaxy was in the process of invading the Central, as was the Northern galaxy (ruled by amoeboid races).
The game was eventually acquired by the original designer, who ran it through a company called KSK Concepts (named for a character from the background of the original game, Khan Sigma Khan). It was converted from a wholly human-run game to a computer-assisted game, and was run for several years.