Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

A podcast about topics in game design featuring the many people who come together to make games possible.

Jun 16, 2014

In this episode we feature Tory Niemann and his game, Alien Frontiers, a massively popular game that made its big splash on Kickstarter years ago. Alien Frontiers is a worker placement game that uses dice instead of pawns as workers. Players roll these workers and place them at Orbital Facilities in an attempt to land colonies on the planet below. The most interesting feature of this game, in this podcaster's opinion, is the variety it affords players in utilizing workers (building ships to gain more resournces, destroying ships to land colonies, and rebuilding those ships to do it again) and placing colonies on the planet (Colonist Hub, Terraforming Station, Colony Constructor). Alien Frontiers gives you multiple paths to victory, it depends on which strategy you decide to employ.

Our discussion focused on Tory's the process from initial design to the completed product, the hard limits the game forces the players to work around, and the plentitude of options that players have in the game. We touched on Tory's forthcoming game, Pay Dirt (Kickstarter, BGG), and how his approach to worker placement changed in that game. We only delve deep enough to keep our Casio watches from wearing out (3m or so) because we hope to have Tory back once Pay Dirt is in gamers' hands.

If you wish to purchase Alien Frontiers, check out Game Salute for more information (or your friendly local game store). Finally, Alien Frontiers is adding the Outer Belt expansion in November 2014. You can pre-order the expansion (I know I will) by June 30th to get an exclusive bonus promo pack by clicking this link. During the recording we presume that the pre-order (sans bonus promo pack) will last until shortly before the expansions release.