Game: Light Speed

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mothertruckin — 2008-07-19T03:52:25+00:00

2 player game in progress.

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mothertruckin — 2008-07-19T03:51:36+00:00

The Avenger is damaged.

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mothertruckin — 2008-07-19T03:43:24+00:00

Ten ore left on the asteroid.

Thread: Re: Light Speed for Gaming Drunkards

hurstdm — 2008-01-04T15:25:11+00:00

Geneus!!11 *urp*

Cheapass games often make good drinking games. If you fail to attempt to kill Dr. Lucky on your turn, for example. Or anytime you lose a hand of Brawl.

Thread: Light Speed for Gaming Drunkards

erak — 2008-01-03T16:50:22+00:00

Light Speed for Gaming Drunkards takes elements of my favorite drinking game, Flip Cup, and applies them to the fastest card game on BGG. It's really quite simple--when the game starts, you must chug a beer before you can play your cards. That's all. No forced-drinks a la presidential decree in Asshole or penalty sips like the losing end of Beer Pong. Just good ol' Slam a Beer Then Slam Your Cards.

The cards will undoubtably get water/beer damage as the night goes on, but at $3.50 for the game, it's an easily replaceable loss.

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fehrmeister — 2007-12-05T05:47:19+00:00

A Complete Set of Purple Ships

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smcneil — 2007-11-25T02:17:13+00:00

Close shot of game cards

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garea37 — 2007-09-11T19:16:45+00:00

Measuring in Ludic Bar Queimada - Barcelona - Spain

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

kuhrusty — 2007-09-04T07:03:58+00:00

russ wrote:
complaining that random play seems just as good as playing carefully.
Well, I don't believe truly random play is a good bet in this game, and certainly not against opponents who know you'll be playing that way.

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

russ — 2007-09-04T05:24:49+00:00

kuhrusty wrote:
Yeah, but can you name a game which doesn't suck when your opponents play randomly? (I can't.)

Rock/Paper/Scissors.

But seriously, it seems the original comment by snooze_uk was not complaining that the game sucks if someone plays randomly (since sure, a game is less interesting if people aren't making any decisions), but complaining that random play seems just as good as playing carefully.

Try playing randomly in Chess, Go, Puerto Rico, Axis and Allies, Bonaparte at Marengo, whatever, and you won't do very well. If random play is as good as thoughtful play, I'd take that as a sign that a game is not very interesting as a game.

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ZiggyZambo — 2007-03-31T23:40:11+00:00

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beezwax — 2006-10-31T07:57:39+00:00

Light Speed and Cheerios! How can you beat that!

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

erak — 2006-08-14T15:47:11+00:00

The sliding ships around the board is the genius of the game. It's as if the ships are really flying around each other. Talk about sticking to your theme!

Thread: Re: 6 points

GaryP — 2006-07-07T17:45:04+00:00

Yes, this is a neat trick we discovered early on. We also discovered that the obviousness of such a play means that everyone else will target your 10, will try to prevent you from adding a shielding ship, and will mine the asteroid with faster ships. I'm not saying it isn't a good move. It is, and we still use it often. But once you put that 10 down, prepare to immediately go on the defensive to protect the investment, because you become the prime target.

Thread: Re: 6 points

beri — 2006-07-06T17:51:40+00:00

This strategy requires that the asteroid survive with 6 units of ore until ship 10 can fire. In my games, that's rarely the case.

Thread: 6 points

FlyingArrow — 2006-07-06T17:19:25+00:00

If you get ship #10 early, place it directly next to the asteroid so that both green lasers hit the asteroid. Place your next ship directly next to the #10 ship to protect it (even better if the protecting ship has a shield). The #10 ship has shields on both narrow ends and another ship protecting it, which should lead to 6 points from the asteroid.

Thread: Re: Ties?

FlyingArrow — 2006-07-01T19:51:19+00:00

Further tiebreakers are the highest numbered ships destroyed. So if I destroyed ships #2, #4, and #8, but my opponent destroyed my ship #10, and we tied otherwise, my opponent would win because he destroyed the highest numbered ship.

Thread: Re: Ties?

FlyingArrow — 2006-06-30T21:13:33+00:00

We decided to go with most rocks mined as the tiebreaker, though of course that could still be a tie.

Thread: Re: Ties?

kuhrusty — 2006-06-30T12:56:09+00:00

Well, I think most people settle ties by playing a game of Campaign for North Africa, but sometimes you hear stories about people who settle the matter with a knife fight or something.

(I used to know some people who would just play another game of Light Speed, but that doesn't really make any sense--what if you have another tie?)

Thread: Ties?

FlyingArrow — 2006-06-30T11:58:50+00:00

I don't see anywhere in the rules how to handle ties. What do you use for a tiebreaker?

Thread: Re: New to the game

LazyJ — 2006-06-11T21:19:46+00:00

You know what really works well for this game? A laser level! They aren't that expensive anymore, and when you start using *real* lasers in a game, your friends can't help but be impressed. There's also practically no debate about what hits what or whether or not the laser extends in the right line. You've got a perfectly straight line, every time. You don't even touch the cards until they are picked up! We play this game for hours.

Thread: New to the game

jhliu — 2006-04-02T00:11:08+00:00

I just got a copy of Light Speed based on the descriptions. I played two 2-player demo games with some friends who also hadn't played and lost both times, but then last night I got to try a 4-player game, and several 3-player games (after our 4th decided she was too tired to keep going).

This time I managed to win most of the games, which I think made the other players a little suspicious since I was the one teaching them the game.

Diane was always the first one to get all 10 cards out, and Erik was the slowest, often with about 5 cards left in his hand. I fell somewhere in between, usually with 2 or 3 left. After getting most of his ships blown up in the first few games and being left with no points, Erik switched to a long-range strategy, placing ships on the edge of the table and going for long shots at the asteroid, but also wasting lasers pointing off to the side. I managed to block some shots at the asteroid with stronger ships without getting destroyed myself, but the last game Erik did come closer in points.

In general I'm not so sure that going for the asteroid is the best strategy, because it's too easy for your ship to get blown up and lose all the points, whereas if you shoot at other ships and manage to destroy them, you get the points whether your shooter survives or not.

Either way, it's a fun game and I look forward to playing it more.

I use a cut rubber band (as suggested) for checking shots, and I had some leftover flannel from recovering my card table that works really well for a playing surface--I can roll it up and stick it in my game bag, and then it keeps cards from sliding around no matter what table we use.

Thread: Dental Floss and space ships

ValentineS — 2006-02-19T04:17:24+00:00

What you get:
42 cards
1 Instructions booklet
1 flimsy zip lock

Theme:
So each player is a fleet of ships dropping out of light speed to do battle over some space rocks. Good times! Nothing about this game is going to suck you in it's just not that kind of game. The theme is more or less an excuse for the mechanics though I admit they are very well paired. You find yourself not caring much about the theme, this is mostly due to the lack of production value
Score 8/10 (hey the theme isn't bad it's just the bits)

Bits:
Okay this is a Cheapass game so i wasn't expecting much but i was still underwhelmed. The card art while clean and professional looks like something from a bad 80s video game box. The cards themselves feel like they are printed on standard computer paper, and worst of all they are a totally nonstandard size so good luck finding protectors to make the game last. The biggest let down however is you need a pretty large number of counters which they do not include. Cheap ass indeed! At least give us everything we need to play guys come on.
Score 3/10

Mechanics:
I will save you a verbatim of the rules and just give you how things play out. So the big mechanic is point your card's "lasers” at your friends card. You put the cards down one card at a time this leads to a "ha got you.. no no i got you... but i got you from behind.. etc.." scenario which is very fun. The thing that makes the above mentioned mechanic even better is the fact that you have to do this at high speed because the first person to put all their ships out says stop and no more ships can hit the table. With ships dropping at high speed it's hard to take it all in and you end up killing at least one of your own ships more often then not.
Over all i feel like the theme and the mechanics mesh very well and it leads to some fast frenzied game play, something not too common in what is at heart a strategy game.
Score 7.5/10

All Things Considered:
well I would love to say this is a great travel game but you need a pretty big area to play it , a bunch of counters, and a big bit of string. All things considered it's a good fast filler game for people who enjoy strategy and sci-fi, but no epic space game
Bottom Line 6.6/10

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

steveoliverc — 2006-02-02T18:56:34+00:00

You can't move your ship once you've let go of your card. But you can mvoe it in your hand round on the table until you are happy with the placement.

No wonder my games go so quickly -- we've been playing Ultra Light Speed! Thanks for the clarification.

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

The Bellman — 2006-02-02T11:15:08+00:00

You can't move your ship once you've let go of your card. But you can mvoe it in your hand round on the table until you are happy with the placement.

This isn't a game-breaker of a quibble - it was actually a one-off very tense moment of the game that we both enjoyed immensely! The fact that bad placement can really injure your score means that this game is a lot mroe sedate than, say, Brawl.

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

steveoliverc — 2006-02-02T05:01:43+00:00

You end up with the players endlessly sliding the cards round the playing field, trying to outguess their opponent.

You can't move your ship after you've set it onto the table, so no sliding around is permitted. Once you get that rule right, it takes care of the other rule you seem to have neglected, which is that the game is over as soon as one player has placed all their ships. You have an advantage over your opponents if you get all of your ships onto the table because you have more chances of hitting something and scoring points. You won't wait around to see where your opponent is going to place their last ship because you don't want to get stuck not being to play your own last ship.

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

kuhrusty — 2006-02-02T01:50:41+00:00

Dweeb wrote:
I've seen this too often, and I feel it's a weakness of the game. Basically, if somebody tries this tactic there IS no game.
Yeah, but can you name a game which doesn't suck when your opponents play randomly? (I can't.)

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

craniac — 2006-02-01T23:00:43+00:00

There's a variant where you have a hand of two cards at a time, I believe.

It felt too random to me. Torpedo, which rips this off (politely) and is played with the icehouse pyramids, was more fun for me.

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

Dweeb — 2006-02-01T15:59:09+00:00

Snooze_uk wrote:
It means there is often a good tactic of just throwing down your ten ships as quickly as possible without even thinking about it. I have tried this once and by the time I managed to get all my ships down, my opponent had only placed three! It was still a close score, as my ships were very poorly placed, but made for very tense scoring!

I've seen this too often, and I feel it's a weakness of the game. Basically, if somebody tries this tactic there IS no game.

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

Snooze_uk — 2006-02-01T10:20:16+00:00

Same here - I've never seen this happen either.

Are you sure you enforced the correct game end condition? ie. that the game ends as soon as any one player plays their last ship, so that others can be left with unplayed ships.

It means there is often a good tactic of just throwing down your ten ships as quickly as possible without even thinking about it. I have tried this once and by the time I managed to get all my ships down, my opponent had only placed three! It was still a close score, as my ships were very poorly placed, but made for very tense scoring!

Thread: Re: The best things come in small packages!

kuhrusty — 2006-01-31T22:37:12+00:00

The Bellman wrote:
Basically, you can reach a point in the game where each player has one card in their hand that they are trying to position on the table, but neither one wants to commit until the other player finishes his ship placement. You end up with the players endlessly sliding the cards round the playing field, trying to outguess their opponent.
Weird, I've never seen this! (Or a game which could be described as "sedate," ha ha. Our games always end with one guy calling "stop" while I'm still holding half my cards.)

The one thing I wish they'd done differently--I've been tempted to add this myself--is have the line of the lasers extend all the way across the cards, or add some targeting dot on the opposite edge of the card, just to lengthen the line segment you're trying to trace with the rubber band. (That might cut down on the "it's straight... that's a hit," "no, move it over a bit... now it's straight... that's a miss" business. You have to play this game with people who are willing to flip a coin or something when there's a disagreement about shots which land right on the line!)

(Well, I also wish the art extended to the card edges--that would help people understand where the shields are--but that would have made it less Cheap, ha ha.)

Anyway, nice review of a fun game!

Thread: The best things come in small packages!

The Bellman — 2006-01-31T12:27:47+00:00

Lightspeed is another real-time card game from the fertile mind of James Ernest (with Tom Jolly’s help). (Or maybe vice versa – Tom Jolly with James Ernest’s help – but I’m getting off the topic.)

It is a quintessential Cheapass Game (in their ‘Hip Pocket’ line). It comes in a little zip-lock bag, with the cards and the rules, and that’s it. The cards are actually nicely drawn in colour, with some good artwork depicting the ships.

The game itself is a space battle for mineral deposits on an asteroid (or two). To play the game, you will need a whole bunch of coloured beads, to depict damage to your ships, and ores that you have mined from the asteroid.

Each player (up to four) gets a deck of ten identical ships (bar the colour, so you can tell who is who). Each card has a picture of the ship on it, along with it’s name, a number from one to ten, some red dots showing how much damage it can take, lines of fire, and shields along some (or none) of the edges.

The asteroid card is placed in the middle of the table, with fifteen mineral beads on it (for an alternate set-up, you can place two asteroids with eight beads each, or flip both asteroid cards over to form one big asteroid … whatever works for you). Each player takes his deck of ships (shuffled) in one hand, and readies himself for play. When the word is given, each player can play as fast as he likes, taking the top card of his deck and placing it anywhere on the table. The players keep doing this until one person has played all of his cards, and shouts “stop”. The scoring then begins. Which usually takes longer than the game play…

Look for the ships numbered one on the table. These are the smallest, more fragile and faster ships, and they fire first. You then progress through each number in turn, until you get to the ‘ten’ ships – the bigger, heavier-armed and -shielded ships.

The lines of fire and shields on the ship cards are the important bits. Basically, each weapon on each ship (the smallest have one small weapon firing forwards, the largest have four weapons, firing in all directions) has a straight line drawn from it to the edge of the card. Once the cards have all been played, each line of fire needs to be extended from the edge of the card, until it either hits something or misses everything. The rules suggest stretching out a rubber band along the line – using it’s shadow to avoid moving the cards in the meantime.

If the line of fire intersects with another ship, check to see if there is a shield along the edge at which the line hit. If there is a shield in the way, nothing happened. Otherwise, the shot does one, two or three damage (indicated by the ‘strength’ of the shot – a line is either very thin, thick, or very thick and green). You place the indicated number of hits on the ship (whether it is friendly or enemy – so place your ships carefully!) or, if you hit the asteroid, ‘mine’ that many chunks of ore from it, taking the counters off the asteroid and placing them on the mining ship.

If you destroyed a ship, remove it from play. This means that the bigger ships that do more damage, and are consequently slower, may not actually get to fire, because they are destroyed by the faster ships that go first.

Your score equals the number of mined chunks from the asteroid on surviving ships, plus the number of ‘red dots’ (i.e. damage capacity) on destroyed enemy ships.

The rules are simple, easy to explain, and fast. There isn’t much room for misinterpretation here, which is good for a real-time game. Unlike other real-time games from Cheapass (e.g. Brawl and Falling), this isn’t as frantic as you’d expect. In fact, one of the flaws in the game can lead to turn paralysis – something I’ve certainly never seen before in a fast and furious real-time space combat game! Basically, you can reach a point in the game where each player has one card in their hand that they are trying to position on the table, but neither one wants to commit until the other player finishes his ship placement. You end up with the players endlessly sliding the cards round the playing field, trying to outguess their opponent.

But the play is actually fairly sedate – mainly because if you place your ships badly, you will end up shooting your own forces out of the sky and giving your opponent more points. Having said that, not having all of your ships on the table can be quite a handicap – so don’t take too long to figure out where to best place your cards.

All in all, I think the game is excellent – very easy and, well, cheap. The design is almost elegant, with everything you need to know cleanly and clearly placed on the ship cards. The simple system uses lines of fire, angles, shields, damage markers, mineral deposits … it packs a whole lot of bang into such a small package.

The cards are very nice; that artwork is great, and it is easy to see what does what in the whole lot. My only other gripe is that the cards have pointed corners. When you are trying to slide you ship across the table to the premium position (a card is not considered ‘played’ until you release your hold from it), the corners constantly catch on the tablecloth (which you need to use for real-time card games to stop them sliding on their own accord). I would have been much more satisfied paying a little more for rounded corners in this instance.

But all in all, it is a fast and furious filler game – each round takes about a minute (complete with scoring), and you can easily play a whole sequence of games while waiting for the latecomers...

Thread: Learning Light Speed

Corbeau — 2005-10-15T04:14:33+00:00

The local game store was celebrating its 15th anniversary, and threw a party complete with prizes, discounts, and food. And, of course, game demos.

The representitive of Cheapass games was running rounds of Diceland when I got there, but when that died down he pulled out Light Speed. Having heard a lot about Light Speed, most of it good, I was curious and volunteered to play. A third player also decided to join in, and after a short rules explanation we started off.

The first game was quick, though scoring took a bit longer since we were going through it the first time. The demo guy dropped all his ships first, but the third player wound up winning on points even though he only got to place four ships (they were powerful ships that were well placed, and so none died but all inflicted damage).

The second game was also quick, though there was more tactical play as we tried to position our ships with shields to screen our more vulnerable ships, and get the best possible shots. This time I was the first finished with placement, while the other two players each had two or three ships still in hand. Though some nice placement, partly through skill and partly through luck, I was the king of shipkilling, dishing out almost all of the casualties inflicted this round. I also happened to be the king of teamkilling, but I racked up enough kills and mining points that it didn't matter. I won a landslide of eleven points to scores around four or five.

So naturally I bought the game. While I admit that I enjoyed winning, it should be pointed out that this is a great game for the price. $4 is nothing compared to many inferior filler games, and the required tokens should be easy for most gamers to supply. I was especially suprised at how much tactics there are in what I initially regarded as a dexterity-based speed game. This from a tactical wargame addict. Highly recommended.

Thread: a fast, frantic, fun game

Gnomekin — 2005-09-08T23:08:03+00:00

Light Speed is part of Cheapass’s Hip Pocket line, a relatively new line of games. They tend to be smaller and more affordable than Cheapass’s regular games, which considering how well Cheapass Games lives up to its names, is saying something. They also tend to be some of strongest games that Cheapass has produced, shorter on the humor than most of their games but longer on the actual play. Light Speed is one of the most unusual of the Hip Pocket line and also one of the best.

Light Speed is a game where two to four players take control of fleets of spaceships in order to battle out control of a valuable asteroid. By the end of the game, the asteroid will probably be destroyed and the game will have broken down into a grim game of last man standing. The more players, the greater the chaos, the destruction and the fun.

Light Speed also happens to be a ‘real time’ card game, in which there are no turns. Players slap down cards as fast as they want to, which usually means as fast as they’re able. While Cheapass didn’t actually pioneer real time card games, between Falling, Brawl, FightBall, and Light Speed, they certainly make good use of the idea.

Light Speed is made up of a deck of 42 cards in a little plastic baggie, along with a sheet of rules. The deck breaks down into four individual player decks, which are different colors but otherwise alike, and two asteroid cards, which can be used to form on big asteroid, depending on the number of players. The cards are in color, yes, and the artwork on them is pretty good. The cards are fairly durable, particularly for Cheapass, which is a good thing since they’re doing to be shuffled and roughhoused a lot.

This being a Cheapass game, you will need to supply some additional pieces. In this case, they’re not too painful. You will need about twelve to twenty counters for the asteroid and about fifteen damage counters per player. If there are more than two players, each player will need identifiable damage counters.

Since they are so central to the game, let’s take a closer look at player’s individual cards. Each card in a player’s deck is a ship. Each card has a snazzy picture of spaceship with one to four laser beams coming out of it. There are three different kinds of laser beams but even a colorblind guy like me can tell them apart. Each ship is also marked with a number of health points, a speed number of one to ten, and a name, which doesn’t actually doing anything but it’s a lot cooler to be able to call your ships Moths or Peacemakers rather ship one or ship eight. Some of the ships also have shields.

There’s actually a lot of information on these cards and it’s all very clearly displayed. No one I have showed these cards to has had any trouble understanding them. These are some incredibly well designed cards, which is a real statement of how far Cheapass Games has come in the last few years.

The asteroid card is set down in the middle of the play area with twelve asteroid tokens on it. If there are more than two players, you may want to add more tokens but that’s strictly optional. Each player takes one deck of the cards and shuffles them, keeping the deck in their hand. Then, the game begins!

You draw the first card from your deck and place it on the playing field. You can place that card any which way you choose. The only thing that you can’t do is place it on top of another card. After your fingers leave the card, you are no allowed to move that card anyway. Then, you draw your next card and do the same thing again.

Your goal is to point as many of your lasers as possible at the other players’ ships while having as few as possible pointing at you.

There are no turns. Players can place cards as fast as they choose. The first player to place all their cards calls time. The other players can either not play the card in their hands or drop it on the table right where their hand is.

Then, we move onto the scoring round.

Ships activate in speed order. Ships with a speed rating of one go first, then twos, then threes, etc. Ships of the same speed act simultaneously.

When a ship goes off, you take a rubber band or string or anything that will give you a straight line and see if the ship’s lasers hit anything. Since card placement is crucial, you may want to actually hold the rubber band over the card and use the shadow to follow the line. Laser beams will travel straight until they hit something. Laser beams not only come in three different colors but each color is also a different thickness so it is real easy to tell the different lasers apart.

If you hit another ship, including one of your own, you do that laser’s worth of damage to that ship. You mark this by putting down that many of your damage markers on the ship. If it hit a ship’s shield, it does no damage. For purposes of determining if you hit, the entire card counts as the ship. If a ship takes more damage than it has health points, guess what, it gets destroyed. Whoever did the most damage to the ship claims it. In a two player game, if you destroy one of your own ships, your opponent gets it. In a multi-player game, you take the ship and subtract it from your points.

If you hit the asteroid, you mine it for as many points as the laser was worth, taking that many tokens off of the asteroid. After all of the tokens are removed, the asteroid is destroyed and removed from play. The mined tokens are placed on the ship that mined them. If that ship is destroyed, those tokens are lost, although some variants have the tokens transferred to the ship that destroyed them.

After the speed ten ships are resolved, players count up the health points of the ships they have that are still on the field, the health points of the ships they destroyed in combat (subtracting the health points of any of their own ships that they destroyed in a multi-player game), and any asteroid tokens they mined and managed to retain. The player with the highest score wins!

Of course, since the game only takes around two minutes to play and score, there is always time for a rematch.

This is a very simple and very fun game. The very simplicity that the clarity of the card design allows makes this game an incredible blast. While I think the retooled Very Clever Pipe Game is better, this is still one of the best games in the Hip Pocket line, a line of games that I already think is very strong.

As a Looney Labs lover, I would be remiss not to mention the similarity between Light Speed and Icehouse, the original game that helped create the Icehouse gaming system. I have heard that Tom Jolly cited Icehouse as an influence for the game but I have never been able to substantiate that claim. The two games are quite similar, with Icehouse having more room for strategy and tactics.

However, it is also a more complicated, fiddly game that has a definite learning curve. While Icehouse isn’t a bad game, the simplicity and speed of Light Speed makes it more fun to play. And, in the end, more fun makes Light Speed a better game. Buy Icehouse pieces to play a wide variety of other games and buy Light Speed to play Light Speed.

This is a great game. This is a cheap game. Those two things make it a game worth owning.

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maka — 2005-05-26T11:58:35+00:00

Thread: LightSpeed---totally awesome!

jkopena — 2005-05-17T01:59:02+00:00

Let's get right down to it: Light Speed is easily one of my favorite games, and one of the best I've seen. Is it a crowning triumph of strategy that you can play for hours at a time and will be around for eons? Probably not. Can you get sucked into playing more rounds of it than you planned on? Yeah, probably. This is a really clever, original game that you can explain in a couple minutes, play in a couple minutes, and have a lot of fun doing so.

The other reviews went over the mechanics pretty well, but to recap it basically works like this: Each player has a hand of 10 spaceships. Each ship has a number of damage points it can take, lasers shooting off the cards, and the occassional force field defending some portion of the ship. At the start, you have these shuffled in your hand. A game consists of placing these on the playing surface, simultaneously with the other players, as fast as you can. Once someone gets all their cards down, you see who managed to shoot who with the lasers. Destroying an opponent's ship gets you points, destroying your own ship loses them, and hitting the local asteroids (cards placed beforehand) also gets you points. Once you've tallied up the scores, that's it, shuffle the cards and start all over.

Note that in general I dislike dexterity games, and don't really consider this to be one. The real-time aspect may not be for everyone, but it's a lot of fun. The frenzy of putting cards down definitely creates a feeling of lots of little spaceships darting around an asteroid field taking shots at each other.

Despite the rapid, seemingly barely-thinking nature of the card-playing, the game is interesting enough to have a whole bunch of viable strategies. Do you try to place your cards along the outside, pointing in? Do you try and cluster on the inside and shoot out? Aim for the asteroids or other players? Is it better to aim well or play more ships? Can you get your lower-point ships in place to wipe out the bigger ships before they get a chance to shoot? Can you protect your ships with other ships' shields? Keeping all that in mind as you're whipping ships onto the table and your buddy's almost out can be a real challenge, especially given that you can't move ships once placed and correct any mistakes.

The real-time aspect combined with all these decisions really creates a slight bit of tension and nervousness (at least for me) that you wouldn't expect out of such a seemingly simple game, which is awesome. The fact that all these decisions and thoughts exist is probably why the turn-based variant is still a solid little game, though not as out-and-out fun or original as the real-time version.

Now, this is a Cheap Ass game, which means you need to provide some chits for counting damage and a rubber band or ruler for laser sighting. However, the component quality is very good, better than most of their games. The artwork is fun, colorful, and fits the game well. The cards themselves are also pretty good. They're smaller than normal playing cards, but I like the dimensions. Also, they're of nice, thicker stock than playing cards and handle well. Lastly, the rules are well-written and clear.

The only possible drawback to Light Speed is that sometimes, especially with a couple players, the scoring can take a little longer than it should, given how fast the game plays. It can sometimes take a little bit of scanning just to find the ships in order in the sea of colors out on the table. It's also not something to play with rules-lawyers who'll argue the laser lines ("No, when you look from this angle it just missed!"). I use a rubber band to help with the sighting, but generally play it fast & loose, which keeps things moving.

Still, that's not a serious problem and I overwhelmingly recommend this game to anyone with an interest in little spaceships blasting each other apart and/or a fast, light, original game. Especially considering the ~ $5US cost, this is a great buy. Light speed, ahead!

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Fawkes — 2005-04-04T14:21:34+00:00

Thread: Session Report

ethim — 2004-09-07T23:19:03+00:00

I bought this game for 8 CAD$ not expecting anything. I was surprize at how fun this game is. I played around ten games with 2,3 and 4 players. It is a real-time game, where you deploy a set of 10 ships of varying strengh. Each player has identical sets of ships. Ships have lasers and shield. Each player deploy their ship one at a time as fast as possible, because if you are done quickly the other players are not allowed to finish the deployment of their remaining ships.

Deployment takes at most a minute. Scoring takes at most 5 minutes. This is a chaotic game, especially with more players. But nevertheless it is fun and exciting. You are at the edge of your seat until the scoring is done. I will play this again many times that is for sure.

Thread: User Review

zombiemonkey — 2004-02-24T22:34:07+00:00

Light Speed is a 'real time' card game from James Ernest and Tom Jolly. The game is all about intergalactic war (and asteroid mining, kind of a by product of all the fighting that seems to be going on in deep space), with players taking command of a team of ten starships of varying sizes, speeds and power.

Before play begins an asteroid card (or two with more than two players ) is placed in the centre of the playing area with 12 damage counters on it (or 12 on each card for more than two players).

There are two distinct phases to the game - deployment and scoring. During the deployment phase, players place their ships face up on the table as quickly as they can, trying to place them so that their lasers point at opposing ships and/or the asteroid (and not at their own ships!).

Once one player has placed all of his cards the other players must immediately stop, although they can play a card if they are holding it face up by dropping it without properly placing it.

The second phase is the scoring phase. Players use a broken rubber band, a tape measure, a ruler or a very straight monkey to track where their lasers are firing and if they hit anything. The lowest numbered ships fire first (all number 1s) until the number 10 ships fire.

Each ship is firing in a particular direction, and players use their measuring implement to see if the laser hits another card. Most ships also have energy shields which, if hit, absorb lasers of any strength, thus negating any damage it would have done if it had hit a vulnerable part of the ship. So if a laser hits an unprotected edge of the card, damage is calculated by the strength of the laser (there are three laser strengths - all colour coded with either 1, 2 or three points of damage). This amount of damage counters are placed on the ship and if this brings the total damage to equal to or less than the health points total (again displayed on the card), the ship is removed from play and given to the opposing player.

It is possible to hit your own ship - in this case, even though you destroyed it, it still counts against you and goes to your opponent.

If the asteroid is hit, it is mined for the amount of damage equal to the laser strength and the counters placed on the firing ship. If the ship remains in play until the end, each mined counters is worth one victory point. To total scores at the end in addition to the asteroid points, players add up the health values of all ships in their kill pile. The winner is (fairly obviously) the player with the highest total.

Gameplay is fast, furious and fun - deployment often takes less than 30 seconds, scoring around two minutes at most - and several games can be played in as little as 10 minutes. It is quite an addictive experience, not unlike a multiplayer video game, with players almost always eager to play a few more games. Lean, clean gameplay mechanics result in a rewarding and easily understandable game which can be enjoyed by hardcore and casual gamers alike. Highly recommended.

Thread: Session Report

FullTinCan — 2003-11-10T20:49:56+00:00

Light Speed
Aidan, Granger, Jeremy

This is fast becoming a favorite filler at the Friesen house. During the initial phase, I rapidly placed my ships, and caught Aidan with 4 unplayed ships. Granger dropped his last ship.

We then went to resolution, and my early ships were rapidly destroyed, and Aidan and Granger started knocking out their own ships. Upon resolution of the game, I had 7 points, Granger 6 and Aidan 4. Both Granger and Aidan had lots of self-inflicted casualties.

A great game. Next time, we are going to play with the piracy variant and two asteroids.

Thread: Session Report

jsdougan — 2003-07-21T13:58:34+00:00

This was my first time attending the 3rd Friday of the month game nights hosted by Rick & Marnie. Although I was 20 minutes later than the official start time, I was only the 2nd person to arrive, not including the hosts. While waiting for more folks to arrive, Rick, Leo, and I went through two quick rounds of Light Speed.

The trickiest thing about this game is making sure that you minimize the amount your ships shoot each other. With three people, it's also useful to make sure that you try to shoot ships from both players.

I got the hang of the game faster than Leo, and managed to win both rounds.

Thread: Session Report

FullTinCan — 2003-07-18T20:53:25+00:00

Light Speed

Geoff, Aidan, Jeremy

Aidan was interested in playing a game before going to bed, and looking at him, I could tell that he really wouldn't last too long (he was very tired), so before tucking him into bed, we broke out Light Speed.

The game is simple and easy to learn. Yet beneath the surface, there is certainly a tactical game. You must carefully balance the need to mine ore, destroy other ships, and protect the ships that are going to score you mining points.

After a quick explanation, we were off. Geoff and I agreed to place ships a little slower to allow Aidan a better chance. Geoff and I ended up placing ships too slowly and Aidan respectively stiffed us out of 4 and 3 ships.

Now on to the resolution. It became obvious that Aidan's placements were haphazard, as he was often times hitting his own ships. But Geoff and I were at a distinct disadvantage with fewer ships. Ultimately Geoff won this one through lots of mining.

The next game however, was where the glory of Light Speed showed up. Everyone abandoned the mining chances, and just went for kills. This resulted in denying Geoff numerous shots, as we frequently destroyed his ships that had yet to fire. Aidan was busy picking on his own ships (perhaps next time he'll understand the need to hit other ships). Geoff picked off ships that had already fired.

In the end Aidan had -2 points, Geoff had 4 and I had 5 points. Each of us had destroyed at least one of our ships.

What a great game. Certainly a lot of bang for the buck. I can't wait for the Diceland expansion to come out.

Thread: User Review

FullTinCan — 2003-07-16T15:20:13+00:00

The game itself is straight forward. Each player has 10 ships that fire different intensity lasers in various directions. Each ship has a certain amount of damage that it can sustain before it is destroyed. In addition, some ships have limited shield cover. Any lasers that hit a Shield is harmlessly absorbed. In addition there is an asteroid in the middle of the playing field that can be mined (shot at) for victory points.

Each player shuffles their 10 ships. Then the deployment begins. Without looking at the card, place it somewhere on the playing field (a large table). Once you have placed the card you may rotate it to better position your lasers. Once set, you draw and place the next card. And so on, until one player has deployed all of their ships. At this point, the other player may drop the card in hand (i.e. no positioning) or put it back in their hand.

The resolution begins. Starting with your "1" ships, they simultaneously fire their lasers hitting enemy, friends, and asteroid without discretion. A method for determinging a straight line is required (a long piece of string, a tape measure). As ships accumulate more damage than they can sustain, they are removed. If a ship is destroyed it is given to the owner's opponent.

Your score, at the end, is 1 point foreach piece asteroid mined plus the sum of the hull strength of each of your opponent's ships that were destroyed. The deployment phase lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes (very slow deployment). The resolution phase lasts 3 to 5 minutes. All in all the game play is very quick and the resolution has tension. At 7 minutes tops, it is a great filler.

There are also ships and rules for 4 players (i.e. "Carnage Fest".

I would most certainly recommend this game. It costs $3 and fits in your pocket. There are is some strategy as well as some good ol' chuckles when your opponent offs his own ship.

Thread: Session Report

FullTinCan — 2003-07-16T15:19:17+00:00

Light Speed
Jeremy, Geoff

Geoff stopped by in the evening and we played several rounds of Light Speed.

Our first game, Geoff and I rapidly deployed our ships. I was stiffed out of placing two ships. During the resolution, Geoff's haste caught up with him as he destroyed several of his own ships, and I also destroyed some of his ships (namely the ones that had mined asteroid material). I won the first match.

The second game, Geoff and I spent a lot more time deploying ships, carefully lining up shots and protection with our shields. No one was stiffed in their deployment. This time around Geoff went the route of mining and I went for knocking off ships. Geoff escaped with a mountain of minerals, but I was able to dispatch a reasonable chunk of his fleet, and pick up a few minerals. I won this game with a narrow margin.

We played a few more rounds. Geoff won some, I won some. Quick play. Quick resolution. Lots of laughs and a great time.