Light Speed
Game Type: Card Game for 2-4 players
Designer: Tom Jolly and James Ernest
Publisher: Cheapass Games
Medium: cardstock with color on one side
Price: $5.00
Light Speed is a real-time card
game of space combat. The premise
is simple, the game play is simple, and the game is almost too much fun. The players each have 10 ships. Each of these 10 ships are different,
but each player has an identical set with the exception of the color. In addition to the 40 ships, there are
2 asteroid cards. The cards are on
cardstock with the ships being printed in color with a glossy finish, while the
back of the card is gray cardstock without a finish. The rules come on a page slightly smaller than an 8 ½” by
11” page, folded in quarters and printed front and back.
Each ship card has the following
details: a number in the top left
corner, the name of the ship beside the number, a number of health dots in the
lower left corner, and a number of laser shots firing from the ship in a
specific direction. Some ships
also have shields, which are represented by red lines on the border of the
card. The laser shots come in
three colors, representing 3 different power levels of shots. The colors are distinct, so there
should be no confusion on which is which.
The goal is to score points by
mining and destroying other ships.
You lose points by destroying your own ships. And it is very easy to shoot your own ships. One of my playtesters continually ended
up in the negatives because he kept shooting his own ships by accident. If the game were not real-time, you
probably wouldn’t shoot your own ships, but a lot of the flavor of the game
would be lost as well.
You play the game by shuffling your
10 ships face down. You do not see
which ship is next, so it is random and a surprise for you. Once all the players are ready, someone
says “Go” and the race begins.
Everyone places their ships at the same time, at whatever speed they
want. Some people will slap their
ships down haphazardly just to get them all out. Others will go the methodical route, but end up with fewer
ships on the board. The first
person to place their last ship says “Stop”, and the remaining players can drop
whatever ship is in hand wherever it is, or they can not play it.
Then you proceed to the scoring
round. The different laser colors
do 1, 2, or 3 points of damage.
You start with the lowest number ship, and trace the lasers from it. The first card the laser crosses, be it
ship or asteroid, will be hit by the laser. If the asteroid is hit, the ship counts as mining the
asteroid for points equal to the damage of the laser. If the laser hits a ship, it does a number of damage points
to the ship. Once all of the ships
for the lowest value have fired, you removed destroyed ships and proceed to the
next lowest ship value. Continue
this to the highest ship value on the board. Higher value ships tend to be stronger, but might not be
around if they get shot by smaller ships before their turn. Whoever does the most damage points to
a ship collects the ship for points.
Then you tally up points from mining and ship destroying to determine
who wins the round.
All in all, this game is a blast to
play. It is simple, quick, and
fun. The ease of the rules makes
it a game children can play as well.
Just be sure they don’t eat whatever you use as damage tokens. This game is a great game to get out
and play while waiting for the rest of the group to show up, or in those times
where you don’t have anything scheduled, or anytime you just want to play a
quick, fun game. I highly
recommend this game, and for the price, you cannot go wrong.
Ratings
Playability: *****
(great fun to play and easy to pick up and get going)
Game Mechanics: *****
(very easy to learn and simple to play)
Presentation: *****
(simple, efficient, and very well done)
Originally written 3/17/2003
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