Sputnik Lost

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

This Tuesday (April 12, 2011) marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned spaceflight - Vostosk I, crewed by Yuri Gagarin.

Someone apparently came across my game , played a session, and was even so kind as to send me a new version of it with some proposed revisions. Amongst them was an expanded equipment list, filling the flip-side of the page with a discussion of the Soviet Space program, and having the astronauts name two family-members/friends back on Earth. Quite a bit of change considering how little there was to work with in the original document.

Has anyone else played this game or or care to suggest additions for it? Do any of you have plans to celebrate the 12th in any unusual way?

If I may make some recommendations - give Sputnik Lost a try or check out "" - a game about running the two sides of the 1960s space race from first satellite to moon shots. It is a free source-port of the game "Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space" from the early 90s. (which in turn is based off a board game called "Lift-Off") Of course, any space game or just some stargazing would be nice too. A documentary film called "" will be released freely on Youtube as well and looks like an interesting project - a combination of archival film, orchestral pieces, and footage from the International Space Station to recreate Yuri's journey from start to finish.

[Peril Planet]

Oh wow. I hadn't seen Sputnik Lost before. I really like it. I don't know if I could get a group together for the 12th, but I will give it a go some time soon. I love the narrative character creation process. One question - when you say the obstacle/aliens need to "beat" the cosmonauts, we are talking about getting more 5+ than them, right? And Sacha rolls however many dice they think is appropriate for the obstacle/alien?

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I'm glad you find it so interesting.

Yes, obstacles or aliens would essentially be acting as NPC cosmonauts, presenting a rather unknown factor, as opposed to players being guaranteed to pass anything less than a difficult challenge.

Oh, and I should add - I thought the false document approach would be a fun way to format a game and help me keep to the one page limit. However, I do not really endorse conspiracy theories about "lost cosmonauts" or that Yuri Gagrin was only the first man in space to survive.

The Soviet space program was the poster child for "do not attribute to malice what can be chalked up to incompetence." Three or four different designers of missiles were competing against each other politically as well as technically using the race as more an advertisement to advance their concepts for ICBMs. Less unity, half the budget, and a lot of duplicated effort.

Still, political intrigue and callousness to human life can be part of the game if you rewind to show them in training or before launch. That was the approach the person I've been corresponding with took.