Stationfall

“Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”- Planet of the Apes, 1968

A thunderous shudder rocked the station and launched me on a very brief journey into the nearest wall. Acrid plumes of electrical discharge invaded my olfactory system, bringing me to my senses and, as the pressure in my ears began to equalise, I became aware of the Digital Assistant’s female voice, muffled at first and then in sharp focus; “Warning, catastrophic incident. Fifteen minutes to Stationfall. Warning, catastrophic incident…”

Sporadic pulses of light thrown out from a lighting tube (that couldn’t quite decide to be broken), punctured the blackness. In one of those brief moments, before I could gather the energy to uncrumple myself from the floor, something caught my eye; in silhouette, a small, awkward, ungainly figure advancing towards me, snorting and spluttering. Human? Not human?

Wait… what was that? A laugh? The lighting tube fired back into life, forcing my hand to my eyes to shield them from the sudden brilliance, and in that instant I recognised the dark shape. It was Jekyll’s pet ape! Charlie, the chimp.

My sigh of relief was audible. All the tension holding me in place drained from my body. “Charlie?” The chimp rose to his full height, his lips receded from his large yellow teeth and he let out a loud hoot. He was waving an object in my general direction. I froze. Loosely held in his hairy mit was the Colonel’s pistol. He pointed a long chimpanzee finger at a nearby briefcase, my briefcase, which had been wrenched from my grasp by the explosion. Message received, loud and clear. I gingerly stretched my leg out, hooked my foot around the back of the case and pushed it towards the simian hoodlum.

Without warning the tube finally gave up the ghost and the corridor was plunged into darkness once more. When my eyesight adjusted Charlie had vanished. The briefcase too. Brilliant sparks from a tangle of cables, hanging down from a hole in the ceiling, told me all I needed to know; he was in the vents. No way was I leaving the station without that briefcase. Charlie had just chimped his last chump!!!

Welcome to Stationfall, and it is nuts!

“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”- 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

In Stationfall, a 2023 title published by Ion Games, you will take control of, and interact with, a diverse range of colourful sci-fi characters inhabiting a space station which is only minutes from being destroyed. The characters are bent on either escaping the doomed base or preventing others from doing so. You will have a primary character (PC), initially unknown to the other players, whose secret agenda you will attempt to fulfil as you rob, bludgeon, shoot, extort and vandalise your way through the station. In other words, for some two plus hours you will be behaving like a degenerate. Now, who’s in?

Theme is Stationfall’s strongest suit. Think Red Dwarf meets 2001: A Space Odyssey meets The Terminator meets Resident Evil meets Bladerunner meets…(insert favourite sci-fi movie here). The interplay between theme and gameplay is, frankly, masterful. You will not be occupied wrestling with complex mechanics. Instead, you will be thinking about how you want your story to unfold. Within minutes of being introduced to Stationfall Rick was gently laughing. “So, I could budgeon GJ (me), steal his stuff and throw him out of an airlock? I love it.” Rob and Nick nodded in approval.

However, what I absolutely love about Stationfall is how the designer and developers have leaned into the theme to create a high ‘laughs per minute played’ ratio. Unlike many, many ‘humorous’ titles (I’m thinking ‘Exploding Kittens’ here) the designer is not clubbing us over the head with what he thinks is funny. There are only so many sniggers to be squeezed out of pairing cartoon cats so that on your turn you can play down two hairy potatoes, right? The variable and complex interaction of rules, characters, players and context allows you, the participants, rather than the components, to generate the giggles.

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Sir Isaac Newton, 1675, grandfather of sci-fi.

Designer Matt Ekland has an impressive CV which includes a number of titles co-authored with his father, innovative games designer Phil Ekland. They are highly regarded in the hobby for their sophisticated, thematic, but often weighty designs. Knowing this, I hesitated before pulling the trigger (I have a shelf of heavyweight shame that sparks divorce conversations with my wife). I should have trusted my gut and bought this bad boy since I ended up waiting nearly a year for the re-print; a year in which I could have been swindling billionaires, feeding my chums to carnivorous plants or unleashing project X.

Stationfall has an impeccable heritage: Cosmic Encounter, Battlestar Galactica, The Resistance, Among Us and others are echoed in this design. If you are not familiar with these titles then take it from me, you are in good hands here. And what you will do on most of your turns is straightforward enough: activate a character and perform some actions. The complexity, challenge, fun and dare I say brilliance, of this work lies not in the game-play itself, but in the range of options and choices you are presented with. And therein lies the rub.

“A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forget our friends and forsake all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003.

Stationfall will make some serious demands on your cognitive capacity. Faced with the endless possibilities that this game throws up, without being prepared before you dive in, you and your friends might end up swearing off Stationfall forever (and coming after me with phasers on ‘kill’). You will have no trouble convincing most people to play because it promises (and will deliver) fun and more fun. However, first (and second) timers should forgo the idea of winning at all costs in favour of just exploring the game, trying a few things out and just enjoying themselves.

You have only thirteen or so game minutes to complete your ‘missions’ (that’s around twenty six main actions). So you have to get cracking. Real time will vary according to familiarity but my experience so far is that it takes around thirty minutes per player, not including set up, teach, loo/fag/vape breaks and extended bouts of colourful banter and arguments. And once everyone is up to scratch, the game can rattle along at a descent pace. Having only two actions each round, plus a free pick up or drop, means that your turn will come around fairly quickly, even with six players, as long as you can keep everyone focussed and threaten those who show signs of analysis paralysis with a helmetless trip into the void.

“It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” – Star Trek: The Next Generation (Episode: Peak Performance), 1989

If you get your kicks from lording your intellectual superiority over your defeated opponents then stick to Chess; Stationfall is probably not for you. Alternatively, if you can treat both winning and losing for the imposters they are, then read on.

Stationfall does not provide a level playing field for you. It’s up to you to level things yourselves. You will have agency in that what you do matters to the narrative you are creating. No roll of a dice dictates events. However, you will largely be engaged in chaos management. I like this. In Stationfall the journey is more important than the destination. By all means have a grand strategy If that’s your bag, but don’t cry about the game being broken if it doesn’t pan out. If what brings you joy is to laugh maniacally, as the anti-matter device you triggered blows up the station leaving you the only player to score any points, (which is what Nick did in our last game) that’s great; enjoy your victory. Just be willing to acknowledge that you managed the chaos just a little bit more effectively than everyone else this time.

Stationfall, may be the title where everything I ever want to experience when gaming is contained within a single design- time will tell. It is not perfect and will not be for everyone, but it might be for you.

Greame Johnston