review of the Asteroid boardgame

I posted this here instead of submitting a formal review, because I can't reasonably justify front page real estate for a review of such an old game that frankly lacks historic significance to the AmeriTrash movement.

This is a review of an old AmeriTrash game that was published by Game Designers Workshop in 1980. I think that it deserves another look, because it's a fun game with a distinctive theme and a strong sense of narrative. And there are currently five copies for sale at BGG for tolerable prices, so while it's out-of-print, Asteroid is somewhat available. Playtime is an average of at least 3 hours, for 2 or more players, probably no more than 5 players at the most.

In a not-too-distant future, mankind has explored the solar system, and is mining the asteroid belt with robots. One particular asteroid mine is run by an artificial intelligence computer "Brain" that has fallen in love with the daughter of a brilliant scientist. Unable to win her love, the Brain has decided to commit suicide in a spectacular manner, by hurling its asteroid into Earth at a high velocity. There is only one space ship at the nearest space station that is fast enough to intercept this asteroid, in hopes of destroying the Brain and diverting the asteroid.

This spaceship is owned by an enterprising reporter nicknamed "Scoop." He is slow and ineffective in combat, but he is the only mandatory member of the expedition and can at least pilot the ship. The rest of the heroes are selected by the players, except for the player of the Brain. Some potential heroes are just space marines who are very effective in combat. Other characters have special abilities like Demon, the demolitions expert, or Ms. Jones, who has minor clairvoyance. Certain characters must be taken in pairs, like the brilliant Professor and his lovely daughter Nicholle, who is the object of the Brain's obsession. Another pair is Lucky, the luckiest man alive, and Muscles, his brother who is also the strongest man alive. There is limited space of Scoop's ship, so only so many points worth of characters can be chosen. There is a Lassie-type dog who takes up only a half-space, and some robots controlled by the Professor who also take up only a half-space.

While most players are choosing the heroes, the Brain player is setting up the Asteroid. He has 8 maps to arrange into two levels of 4 maps each. These rectangular maps are designed to match up with each other in any configuration, as long as the they are all oriented along the same long axis... long ends match up to long ends, short ends match up to short ends. The maps are made up of paper, but it's a sturdy paper stock. The color scheme is muted but effective, with white corridors, pale green rooms, red walls and brown asteroid rock.

Next, the Brain has to set up the contents of the Asteroid, including three types of robots. There are a lot of counters, but they are more manageable after being separated into three groups. The first group is randomly placed in ventilator shafts, and that includes three utility robots and three collapsed ventilator shafts. The second group is randomly placed in corridors, and that includes the powerful roamer robots, some collapsed corridors, and some very useful items for the good guys to find. The third group is everything else, including some miner robots, computer terminals, lots of utility robots, and the Brain itself. The Brain player has complete control over the placement of every counter in the third group. An experienced player can set up these maps in maybe 15 minutes, but an inexperienced player might spend up to an hour on setup, so this step is probably best done before the players show up, or during a meal break.

Although setup is lengthy, the game itself is not hard to learn. The Brain player chooses which map the expedition enters first. After that, each turn is move then fight, first ranged attacks, then melee. Roll 1d6 less than or equal to your ranged attack number to hit (this number depends on whether the range is close or long), then roll 1d6 less than or equal to your kill number for your weapon to kill your opponent. Melee is more lopsided, as the more skilled fighter attacks first. Subtract the lower melee stat from the higher melee stat to see which column the more skilled combatant rolls on, then reverse to see which column the less skilled combatant attacks on, if not already stunned or killed.

Both sides face some thematic challenges. Robots can't just sweep down on the heroes to kill them, the Brain must roll to activate a robot each turn, except for the deadly roamers that activate themselves as soon as they have line-of-sight. Once activated, robots remain active until destroyed. The utility and miner robots sometimes have faulty programming, so the Brain player must draw random chits to see if those robots are operative and loyal, or else defective and even traitorous. He can't use lethal attacks against Nicholle, and must instead try to kidnap her and hold her prisoner.

The heroes also have some challenges, as they can't see any map sections that they haven't seen yet. In fact, they can't even get to the second level until they find one of the four stairs tokens on the first level. Every time there is a combat, Nicholle randomly loses (romantic) interest in one of the other expedition members, until she finally discovers who she loves. The lovers are not allowed to leave each other behind. Lucky has a random number of luck points to spend for a variety of advantages, but only the Brain knows how many luck points before Lucky runs out. If the heroes find a computer terminal, they may hack the system and discover some useful intel about the Asteroid layout, or they may take some damage and activate a roamer.

Depending on which heroes are still alive when they finally find the Brain, there are a few different variations on how the end game plays out. Most likely, there will be a leisurely trip back to Scoop's ship, but sometimes there is barely enough time and even a short firefight can cause a lethal delay. And then there are a whole bunch of thematic but silly victory conditions, based on which expedition members survived.

Although the components are somewhat cheap and drab by modern standards, they are functional. And Asteroid has enough chrome to really bring the theme to life, offering the unusual experience of a dungeon crawl in space. There is some strategy to the game, both during setup and exploration, and the combats can present some interesting tactical situations. Characters will definitely be eliminated along the way, causing tension to build as the expedition loses valuable members.

Unfortunately, the game is inherently imbalanced in favor of the good guys. There are too many bad chits that the Brain can draw when activating robots, and the random placement of maybe 40% of his stuff can leave some loopholes in any particular setup strategy. And the activation rules make it hard for the Brain to set up any strong resistance to the invading heroes. There is an alternate scenario allowing the Brain to deploy clone soldiers instead of robots, so the game can be rebalanced by giving the Brain some extra forces, mixing robots and clone soldiers.

When I was in high school, we played the hell out of Asteroid. For its time, it was a great game. By today's boardgame standards, Asteroid is less impressive. The components are functional but unimpressive. The CRT on the back of the rulebook is great, but I ended up photocopying it a few times so that every player would have a copy. Then I made some simple character sheets, plus injury tokens (picture that blue and white handicapped parking sign, in miniature) to keep track of which humans have been crippled in combat. The character sheets repeat the simple stats, plus spell out any special abilities that you would otherwise need to look up in the rulebook until you had them memorized. The size of the maps make this game about an hour too long for most players, and of course there is the bias in favor of the humans. Sometimes the endgame is exciting, but usually it's too easy for the heroes.

Unmodified, I rate Asteroid three stars on the F:AT scale, for being a flawed but still fun game with a strong narrative and unusual subject matter. With the modifications that I've made, my rating goes up to four stars, for being a great dungeon crawl that steers clear of most of the cliches, though still a little too long. If you like dungeon crawl boardgames but find the current crop disappointing, Asteroid is really worth a try, especially if you can find a used copy for under $30.

Damn it Steve, don't be humble. This is front page material. I think it's really important to preserve the heritage that gamesl like this respresent and to show that you can still play them and enjoy them.

So it's not about a little white triangle zipping through space blowing up wandering asteroids?

metalface13 wrote:

So it's not about a little white triangle zipping through space blowing up wandering asteroids?

No, but that was actually what I was kind of expecting when I bought it.

I agree with Michael. This would be great on the front page.

Cool review, Shellhead. I always wondered what this game was like. The only GDW boardgame I have is Dark Nebula which only took me 25 years to actually get it on the table.

So it's not about a little white triangle zipping through space blowing up wandering asteroids?

Please tell me that the upcoming ASTEROIDS movie is about that.

Really great review - I seem to recall you talking about this one before at some point (maybe a session report?) and so I'm glad you brought it back up in depth! Sounds like a game I'd love.

As I was reading your review I was wondering if all that back-story came with the game or if you made it up, and why don't games come with that much back-story anymore anyway?

generalpf wrote:

As I was reading your review I was wondering if all that back-story came with the game or if you made it up, and why don't games come with that much back-story anymore anyway?

AMEN, BROTHA!

What happened to there being an entire world just beyond the peices you had to play with? That's what tantalizes us for expansions - reminds me of playing hero quest and just that little bit of narrative in the quest book had me imagining the world it was set in - and then there were awesome expansions!

generalpf wrote:

As I was reading your review I was wondering if all that back-story came with the game or if you made it up, and why don't games come with that much back-story anymore anyway?

Asteroid actually comes with even more back story than what I mentioned, I just hit the highlights. There are even some designer's notes at the end identifying the inspiration for some of the characters. The Professor is based on guys like Professor Quatermass and Reed Richards, while Gunner and Sarge are based directly on their namesakes from DC war comics of yesteryear.

Michael Barnes wrote:

So it's not about a little white triangle zipping through space blowing up wandering asteroids?

Please tell me that the upcoming ASTEROIDS movie is about that.

So I hear. At least all of the lampooning scripts on video game blogs say so.

Ska_baron wrote:

generalpf wrote:

As I was reading your review I was wondering if all that back-story came with the game or if you made it up, and why don't games come with that much back-story anymore anyway?

AMEN, BROTHA!

What happened to there being an entire world just beyond the peices you had to play with? That's what tantalizes us for expansions - reminds me of playing hero quest and just that little bit of narrative in the quest book had me imagining the world it was set in - and then there were awesome expansions!

Seriously, that's what I thought made GW so freaking awesome back when they made boardgames: all that rich backstory. Let's face it- it's one of the pillars of AT gaming.

billyz wrote:

Ska_baron wrote:

generalpf wrote:

As I was reading your review I was wondering if all that back-story came with the game or if you made it up, and why don't games come with that much back-story anymore anyway?

AMEN, BROTHA!

What happened to there being an entire world just beyond the peices you had to play with? That's what tantalizes us for expansions - reminds me of playing hero quest and just that little bit of narrative in the quest book had me imagining the world it was set in - and then there were awesome expansions!

Seriously, that's what I thought made GW so freaking awesome back when they made boardgames: all that rich backstory. Let's face it- it's one of the pillars of AT gaming.

Been re-reading the BloodBowl rulebook - half of that thing is just setting material.
You just don't get rulebooks like that anymore, and it's a damn shame.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

billyz wrote:

Ska_baron wrote:

generalpf wrote:

As I was reading your review I was wondering if all that back-story came with the game or if you made it up, and why don't games come with that much back-story anymore anyway?

AMEN, BROTHA!

What happened to there being an entire world just beyond the peices you had to play with? That's what tantalizes us for expansions - reminds me of playing hero quest and just that little bit of narrative in the quest book had me imagining the world it was set in - and then there were awesome expansions!

Seriously, that's what I thought made GW so freaking awesome back when they made boardgames: all that rich backstory. Let's face it- it's one of the pillars of AT gaming.

Been re-reading the BloodBowl rulebook - half of that thing is just setting material.
You just don't get rulebooks like that anymore, and it's a damn shame.

ALL their rulebooks where that way. And you're right, it is a shame.