A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, you heard tell of a planet that was in dire need of green cubes. Funny that, you have a mine that just happens to produce green cubes at an astonishing rate. Why not pressgang robots into service producing green cubes so you can ship them across the vast distances of space?

Well, I can think of a few reasons why not, but if you listen to those reasons, then you'd miss out on a fun little game called Space Dealer. The basic premise of the game is basically what I described, produce goods represented by colored cubes and ship them to other planets, but the mechanics of how you accomplish that are what the game is really about.

Curb appeal

Quite high. Anytime a game is combined with something resembling a toy, it's hard to stay away from. So make a set of rules centered around a pile of sandtimers.... yeah. I'm in.

The bits

At first blush, the game is beautiful. The colors are vivid, the wooden bits are nice, and the fact that they give you eight colors for a 4-person game seems really user-friendly, though it is also functional since you can merge two copies of the game together to get up to an 8-player affair. The cards that come with the game have nice artwork and are easy to decode (no reading needed). They also link well with the "planet" each player sets up in front of them. And you get a CD with a voice telling you how much time you have left set over the intergalactic techno-house music that acts as the timer. (It's always fun to look up and see how many people are bobbing their heads in time with the timer.) Closer inspection however shows that there is a bit to grimace about beneath the veneer.

The ships are a bit large, which is nice for the storage of goods on them. The board (which is a ring of planets comprised of connected cardboard strips) is small, most likely to allow playing area in front of each player and their expanding planetary empire. Each on their own isn't bad, but the two combined give a rather claustrophobic feel to the play area. If two ships are ever in the same area, it becomes quite crowded, and three ships.... well, physics dictates you can't be in two places at once, but the game states otherwise. "Okay, I'm at your planet, even though I can't get within a foot-and-a-half realspace."

The board is also meant to serve as the scoring track. Again, it makes sense since the scoring track should be central, but with the board already being so small for the function of the game, trying to crowd more into it just makes for another difficult thing to manage in a game full of time-crunch management issues. (Someone else suggested not using the scoring track since the way you mark deliveries keeps track of the score for you and you can just tally up at the end. I have tried that and HIGHLY recommend it.)

Twenty minutes remaining

Most of the complaints about the bits wouldn't be real complaints if taken outside the context of the time-pressure of the game. They would only be small headaches if you had time to focus on them and make it work. The true gripe about the bits is the central mechanic to the game: the timers. Good night on a stick, they are nowhere close to timed together, or accurately. I haven't had time to test the ones in my box, but the first two turns are spent swapping timers in an effort to try and get them balanced. It can really affect the gameplay. You can use the imbalance as a handicap to give the more experienced players the slower timers, but it still is something that is a major hangup. I have looked into getting more precise timers online, but I don't feel I should have to.

The rules

The rules are fairly well laid out. Similar to Puerto Rico, the parts are more confusing than the whole in the fact that you can teach individual part of the rules, but you get blank stares because until you get into the game, it is hard to see how each part fits into the big picture of what you are trying to accomplish.

The big picture is this: most cards that people can "build" at their planetary industrial complex also come with demands that other players can fill. Your blue-cube mine has a demand at the bottom edge asking for a red cube and a yellow cube. Like other resource-gathering games, you pay the goods, you get stuff. In this case, when you deliver goods to another player's planet, you get points. You also give them points. In the above example, the demand at the blue mine for the red and yellow cubes has a listing of (2/1). Whoever makes the delivery gets the larger point total, whoever owns the planet the dropoff was made at gets the smaller point total. So while you are looking to score points by delivering goods, you also want to accentuate those points by making your planet an appealing drop-point.

Fifteen minutes remaining

One of the primary mechanics of the game is that there are no "turns." That antiquated concept of game participation has been replaced by time. Each player is given two sand-timers and when they want to take an action in the game, they set their sand-timer on it. When the sand runs out, the action has been completed. The four actions you can take are:

Build a new card into your compound. You will have two cards to choose from, ones you choose as the game progresses. Place a sand-timer there and when the sand runs down, you get to move it from blueprint to reality.

Upgrade the tech level of your planet. The cards you can build have varying powers. The more powerful cards are reserved for higher tech levels and are kept in different piles of cards. At the start of the game, you have access to an assigned hand of tech 1 cards. When your planet upgrades, you can draw from the pile of tech 2 or tech 3 cards which increase your production, give you the ability to manipulate your production, or create extra demands for other people to fill. The higher the tech level of your planet, the more powerful cards you have access to.

Use the cards you've built. Whether it is production or turning one cube into another, set a sand-timer in your complex on the card, and when the time runs out you reap the rewards of your time investment.

Ten minutes remaining

Move your ship. Place your ship on the next planet to show where you are headed. Then set your sand-timer to represent your time in transit. When the sand expires, you've arrived. Now you may trade with other players or make deliveries "off the clock."

Does it work?

Ah, the synergy of it. If the game were turn-based, it would be so, so very dry and not that compelling. "On my turn I'll make a cube and upgrade my planet. Your turn." But when you eliminate turns and make everything time-based, it works quite neatly. Early, it is a little slow since you set two sand-timers and then watch them drain, partially waiting to set them on new tasks, but more to see who has faster timers than you. But as the game progresses, the time element really does create a frantic feel. What would normally be calculated on downtime while other people take their turns now must be calculated while you are keeping your eye on the timers in front of you that represent when your next turn is. Focus too much on one task or on analyzing the demands at other player's planets, and you will find a timer that expired 15 seconds ago. That's painful. But it is also a lot of fun. Normally if two people are racing to a space, they can count squares and figure who'll get there first. Now you are dropping your eye to sand-level trying to figure out which ship is going to reach the largest demand first. And then there the CD. The tempo of the music picks up as the game progresses so that the background ambiance adds to the frantic feel. And it is always a little panicky when the voice announces the time. "Five minutes left." "Five? I thought the last announcement was fifteen! How did I miss ten? Oh, crap!"

five minutes remaining

There are some elements that make the learning curve steep that can't be avoided by the nature of the game. You can't stop and explain strategy or even clarify rules that well because the time element of it. Even when I was not playing for the sake of teaching, I couldn't take that much time to explain things because that is time away from that player's turn. Also, with so much going on at once, it is hard to pay attention to everything going on so you can't always figure out who even needs advice. (For me, that can be a good thing since I've been accused of being able to play everyone's game for them in games like Empire Builder.)

And like most games where you are constructing the big, economic machine (PR, PoF, et al), experience of knowing what you are aiming for is magnified. I have taken to staying out of teaching games both for the sake of being able to focus a little more on the needs of those learning as well as to not be able to take advantage of the inexperience of others. The learning curve is made a little steeper by the fact that the time element keeps people from planning and figuring out the mechanics as well as they could.

The end result

The game has flaws. Most of these flaws, however, center around the nature of the game itself. Making a game that is not turn-based but time-based makes it difficult to teach and gives a huge advantage to people with experience. Owning the game and knowing some of the mechanics, I get to plot out a course before the game begins. That can be huge. And of course, varying timer lengths hurts it as well.

That said, the flaws by the nature of the game pale by the experience created by the time-pressure. It is fast-paced enough even with one minute (-ish) on each timer, but it also leaves you enough time to plot what needs to come next. Plus, you get to cheer sand. ("Go... c'mon... faster.... c'mon....drain.... drain..... ") There is interaction between players and so much to keep track of that you will find holes in your attention tot he game at some point. But better to not notice that someone is producing a lot of a cube you need and could trade for than to not notice that your timer ran out 30 seconds ago.

Just one minute left

My wife was rather lukewarm after the first game she played. (I had played two games already and decided to stay out and teach, though I ended up playing for my 10-year-old niece while teaching.) But having played twice more the next night, she rather enjoyed it. Once the panic element subsides a little to where you can see what needs to be done, the game shines through. Mechanics that would otherwise be dull are ramped up and energized by the pressure of the timer and the simultaneous play. I am not sure whether the replay value will go up or down as the mechanics are better grasped, but I've only played the basic rules so far and not used the advanced cards, so I know I have a long way to go before I've exhausted this one.

I give it 8.5 out of 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 zero