In “International Space Station,” a quick card game, each player is a nation contributing to the construction of the ISS and the activities undertaken by its crew. In the spirit of generous international co-operation, they will launch one another’s components, add them to the growing station, conduct research in each other’s laboratories, and cheerfully hand off positions of responsibility to each other’s astronauts.
In other words, they will attempt to outmaneuver one another politically, mechanically, and scientifically to be remembered for all time as the nation that contributed the most to man’s first permanent outpost in space!
Based on some excellent suggestions from the original forum post, I'm now interested to hear peoples' thoughts on these more developed rules. PDF version is included below.
Comments
Anybody? I'm particularly
Anybody? I'm particularly curious about better ways to implement the crew roles. They seem really tacked on right now...
I would agree about the crew
I would agree about the crew roles. I have a couple thoughts about them:
First, aren't crew roles on the ISS constantly changing? Perhaps you should deal out at the start, but have some additional crew role cards in the deck, which players can play as an appointment (replacing the other person's crew card [and any they might currently have] and taking the role for themselves?)
Second, maybe crew roles could make some actions easier/give a free action? Something like "Medical Officer: can place a living quarters and upgrade it in a single turn"? Or "Chief Engineer: can place a component without a connecting truss"?
Third, missions could require certain actions from certain crew members? Discarding cards for prestige, or something like that?