In Rayguns and Rocketships, each player is a Planeteer faction. I drew rocketship maps on paper and was gratified to discover that moving the crew around inside the ships was just plain fun. I “recruited” some D&D lizard men minis and a handful of Adam Strange Heroclix to become my first Planeteer crews. The Planeteer miniatures are inspired by Marx Space Patrol toys from the 1950’s. The toy-like nature of board games really appeals to me and I wanted to reflect this in Rayguns and Rocketships. Even before I discovered Dungeons and Dragons, I had been playing board games like Green Ghost, Dark Shadows and Which Witch. I have always loved board games since I was a young boy. How could one person bring this massive project to life? But I was determined to make Rayguns and Rocketships a reality.
In those days, it took a lot of money and man-power to make video games two things I didn’t possess. My co-workers all liked the idea, but the technology of video game consoles of the day just weren’t up to the task of creating the seamless transitions between ship interiors and outer space that I was dreaming of. If the player wished, they could draw their laser pistols, fire up their jetpacks, and jump out of the rocketship into outer space to fight their way onto an enemy’s ship. The video game’s concept was a multiplayer game in which players would pilot a rocketship, man a control system or raygun cannon that could be fired at enemy’s ships. My imaginary universe became populated with jetpack wearing space-adventurers, sword wielding space-pirates, epic battles between lumbering spaceships, raygun shoot-outs, perilous asteroid belts, and exotic and grotesque alien creatures. I started by listing everything that excited me about the genre, especially the stories from pulp sci-fi magazines of the 1930’s and 40’s: Amazing Stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter books, and Wally Wood’s comic stories from Weird Science and Weird Fantasy. His words inspired me, so I set out to create my own science-fiction game. I was lamenting this to a friend and he asked me: “What kind of game do you want to make?” I immediately replied “A Star Wars game.” He scoffed at my answer and gave me what might be the best advice I’ve ever received: “Make your own damn Star Wars.” Players enjoying the PROTOTYPE of the game Over my career as a game designer, I’ve been privileged to help create many video games – including God of War, Warhammer 40K, Darksiders, and Pac-Man World – but while I designed the levels and game play for these amazing worlds, I never quite had the opportunity to create one of my own.
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