Hear Us Tell the Story of How S.P.A.C.E. Came to Be

2025-10-04

Podcast links: Overcast | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

As expected, being on the podcast Off-Nominal Episode 213 was a blast. I think Rob and I did a good job of telling the story of how S.P.A.C.E. came to be. It should give folks a sense what the game's like to play and how it accomplished our goals (strong American theming coupled with elegant Euro-game mechanics; non-stop, whimsical pop-culture references; replayability; and most importantly, fun!), but without just walking through the rule book.

As the title suggests, it was particularly fun to reminisce about playtesting, from sketching early versions of the map on my driveway in chalk as the kids drew in the background, to thinking through the emergent properties of initiative in the turn-order mechanic, to the thematic and simplifying improvements of eliminating an entire phase (it was called Upkeep). But for Adam in particular, the best part of playtesting was playtesting with his kids. Those many hours are of course most valuable for the bonding and the memories, but they also engender confidence that the game really is both fun and replayable — because kids are both brutually honest and easily bored — but here we are all these years later still enjoying it. It will be incredibly rewarding to have S.P.A.C.E. in the wild so that others can hopefully share it with their loved ones as we have with ours.

Thanks again to Anthony and Jake for a gracious invitation into their space, and for all the listeners who've already reached out to place orders ($79)! (There's still some stock remaining, so it's not too late.) We received pictures of the proofs from the printer last night so should have units in hand relatively soon.

Order Placed!

2025-09-27

The pre-order is closed, and the first print run is on order! We don't have an exact delivery date yet, but are expecting to have the units around mid-to-late October. Thank you to everyone who placed a pre-order. Thanks to your support we were able to do a bigger run than we'd initially planned, which is enabling us to set the price at $79 (before sales tax and shipping, if applicable). That's just under the mid-point of the range we were expecting. We'll send out emails to all the pre-orders when we have the units in stock to arrange for payment and shipping/delivery.

We also ordered units for inventory, so it's not too late to email info@apogeeboardgames.com and get a first-run copy.

Guesting on Off-Nominal on 10/2 from 1–2 pm Pacific

2025-09-19

On Thursday, 10/2, Rob and Adam will be guests on the Off-Nominal podcast, starting at 1 pm Pacific (also streamed live on YouTube). Adam's been a big fan of the show since it started, with some special admiration for when they landed an interview with then-sitting NASA Adminstrator Jim Bridenstine. We'll see if we can up our beverage game with respect to Diet Mt. Dew (seems easy) and are excited to talk about the origin of S.P.A.C.E., why President Obama gets a (very) little bit of the credit, the goals we had for it from the very start (and how we think we did), and whatever else comes up in conversation. Pre-orders will be closed by then, but we're getting some extra inventory so if you're interested please reach out to info@apogeeboardgames.com.

Thursday 9/4 Game Night at Drum Roll Wine in Renton, WA

2025-08-24

We're excited to announce an up-coming game night at Drum Roll Wine at 6 pm on Thursday, September 4th (2025). We'll be bringing the proof copy of the game's first production run for folks to play. We're super excited about the quality and how it's turned out — especially the box and main gameboard/map — and we can't wait to show it off. We'll also share sneak peeks of some of the components we've updated based on the proof. You're also welcome to bring your own games, and Drum Roll says "feel free to bring dinner or snacks as well". We look forward to seeing you there!

Announcing Apogee Board Games

2025-07-19

Apogee Board Games is just us, Rob & Adam, but we've benefitted from the support and playtesting prowess of friends and family over the years — especially now as we formed Apogee Board Games to publish and distribute our first game, S.P.A.C.E. We also intend to develop and release more games in the future — as well as write here about the long but rewarding process of developing our first published game — although there's nothing to announce yet.