Space Cadets

11th September 2021

The first game of the first Wogglecon for me was Space Cadet.

I wish I hadn't made those Star Trek references in other games, because I could really do with one here!

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Caveat: I'm not going to blog about Space Cadet in as much detail as other games, otherwise I'd be here all week!

Space Cadets is a 3-6 player co-operative game where players take on the roles of the bridge crew commanding a starship as they go on various missions.
There are 9 different stations on the bridge which must be manned, thus players will have 1-3 stations they will be responsible for, depending on the number of players.

What's in a game?

• Stations: Each of the game's 9 stations is actually its own minigame and the player who is manning that station must play the relevant minigame in order to control the station. Each station has it's own board and tokens. The stations are:
  Captain: The captain is in charge of the rounds general strategy and also timing.
  Damage control: This station uses cards and dice to manage damage. When damage occurs, they draw cards and roll dice.
  If things get really bad, there's a risk of a core breach, then all players must play a sort of card matching minigame to prevent the starship exploding!
  Engineering: The engineer plays a symbol-matching, tile-laying minigame, each completed symbol generates energy for their relevant station.
  Helm: The helm minigame requires the playing of a programming movement game using a deck of cards. The more energy the helm gains, the more cards can be drawn.
  Jump drive: To use the jump drive, particularly at the end of them game, the player rolls dice and must get five-of-a-kind. The more energy they have, the more rerolls they get. During the game, they can roll dice to acquire cards to assist with the final roll.
  Sensors: To get sensor lock, the player draws cards from a deck. Each card contains the outline of a tetromino shape, the player then has to blindly draw the matching shape out of bag, although they are allowed to 'feel' for it. Successful results will result in sensor locks or even super locks!
  Shields: To power up shields, the player draws numbered and coloured tiles, then assigns them to one of the starship's 4 shields. The aim to power shields by getting poker hands - i.e. 2-of-a-kind, full house, straights etc. The more power assigned to this station, the more tiles the player draws. 
  Tractor beam: Using the tractor beam requires the player to play the classic game memory and turn over and match both shape and number, the higher the number, the further the range of the beam. More energy means turning over more tiles.
  Weapons: Whoever is in charge or weapons actually has two minigames to play, one to load torpedoes and one to fire.
  Loading: The player draws cards which have outlines on them, they try and fill the outline with tetrominos shapes.
  Fire: For each successfully loaded torpedo, the player then plays shove ha'penny, the further they get to the edge, the more damage the torpedo inflicts.
• Map tiles: These 5x5 gridded tiles represent the quadrants of space the player's ship will have to navigate.
• Tokens & cards: Space Cadets uses a variety of tokens and cards to represent enemy ships and their stats, damage, collectibles and so on.

Since Space Cadets employs 9 minigames just to manage what the players are doing, it uses a wide variety of components.
The smaller tiles and tokens are fairly sturdy, but the larger boards and tiles, particularly the map tiles feel quite thin and flimsy, and might prone to warping (Sic.), it's not a deal breaker though.
There's little art to speak off and it's mostly functional. The games iconography is clear and understandable.

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How's it play?
At the start of the game, players will be given a mission with certain objectives to complete. They will spend rounds exploring quadrants of the galaxy by turning over map tiles, encountering obstacles that need navigating and enemies that need vanquishing in the pursuit of their mission.

Space Cadets is a real time game but that's not to say that all the players act at the same time. The game is broken down into 9 stages per round, although this has nothing to do with the number of stations in the game. The stages are as follows.

• Discussion & energy distribution: The players discuss their strategy for this round, what their priorities are and so on, then the engineer gives out energy tokens to players of the stations as per the need. This stage lasts 3 minutes
• Preparation: Players prepare their stations, often by assigning the energy tokens given to them, this may involve some setup.
• Action: This stage lasts 30 seconds and the following stations become active.
  Engineering: The player generates energy to be used in the following round.
  Helm: This player programs movement for the round.
  Sensors: Scans for enemies and generates target locks.
  Shields: This player powers up the starship's shields.
  Weapons: This player loads torpedo's, they don't fire them yet though.
  Core breach: Not an action, but if the ship is at risk of core breach, this is when the players try to prevent it.
• Resolution: Once the 30 seconds from the previous round are up, then all the players that acted can resolve the effects of their minigames.
• Tractor beam: The player at this station has 30 seconds to use the tractor beam to pull in items as per mission requirements. Even if there's isn't something to tractor, the player can try to learn which tiles are which. 
• Weapons fire: Now whoever's at the weapons station can play shove ha'penny for 30 seconds to unleash torpedoes. Sensor locks add bonuses to shooting.
• Enemy action: Yep, now the enemies get to go. There is a deck of cards that determine enemy ship strength but basically; enemy ships attempt to get lock the player's ship, move closer and attempt to destroy the player's ship. This is done with dice
• Jump drive: Whoever is in charge of the jump drive has 30 seconds to activate it. Doing so will jump the player's ship off the game map and end the mission for better or worse.
• Repair: Whoever is in charge of damage control has 30 seconds to enact repairs from damage inflicted during the enemy action.

That's a very quick overview of how a turn works.
The game also includes a countdown mechanic in the form of a nemesis ship, which after a certain time will appear and hound the players. The nemesis ship cannot be destroyed. 

Endgame
Players continue on their mission until they collectively complete or fail their objectives, additionally, their starship may explode, which as you may imagine can be considered a loss.

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Overall
Space Cadets is without a doubt a hugely ambitious co-operative game. It works hard to evoke the spirit of the TV shows it attempts to simulate.
During play, there were moments when the players were naturally talking about how they needed energy diverted to their station, or how they'd achieved lock on an enemy ship or torpedoes were loaded. It sounded like a sci-fi TV show. This was pretty awesome.

Players will collectively need to identify and prioritize dangers as well as balance managing these risks with working towards their goals. They'll need to decide which stations need energy the most, it's very hard to power up all systems at the same time and of course, they'll need to play their minigames and all of this needs to be done in real time!
It's also something of a peculiar experience, since most players will be concentrating on their own minigames, they won't spend much time paying attention to what other players are doing - even though a lot of the game's mechanics are interlinked. There's a lot of clever gameplay going here.

Having said that; I can't really recommend Space Cadets to casual players or the casual group. While the individual games are not complex, there are 9 of them! Taking 2 minutes to explain each game takes 18 minutes add a minute of of questions for each game and that's now 27 minutes, add in explaining how the enemy ships work and setting up and you're looking at close to 45 minutes of setup, maybe more!

However, if you've got a group of dedicated players who are all willing to commit to learning the game and playing it on regular basis, then Space Cadets will probably be a great experience.