Designer Commentary: Space Fam (with Claire and Caveat)

TranscriptFor Ken Lowery’s Disc 2 jam, I decided to finally release the game I’ve been working on for nearly four years: Space Fam.This is a game about, you guessed it, found family in space. In particular, it takes a lot of inspiration from The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet in that you’re the crew of a ship escorting a traveler from point A to point B, and along the way you deal with your feelings of guilt and stress about living under an oppressive government.It’s a hack of Our Traveling Home by Ash Kreider, and it’s like 90% of the way to really great. But that last 10% is always the hard 10%, and I decided it was time to let this game just be what it is and push it out into the world.As a part of that, I wanted to look back on the design process. What went well, what didn’t, what would I change if I was going to spend another 30 minutes or 30 years on this thing. To do that, I sat down with two of my friends who playtested the game, and we talked about all things Space Fam.Further ReadingSpace Fam on itchThe Disc 2 jam.A commentary podcast episode for Space Fam is available here.I wrote about the design of Space Fam's "scenes menu" here​.I wrote about the design of the Space Fam character sheet here​.Our Traveling Home by Ash KreiderStewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern by Takuma OkadaSpace Post by Jason MorningstarThe WatchNight Witches by Jason MorningstarSocialsSam on Bluesky and itch.The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.comOur logo was designed by sporgory, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

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