Watch me read through this game and write this review here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/693675613
Celestial Bodies, Orbital Mechanics is a deeply intimate character and community game. The story it’s telling is specific, but you will bring so much personal love into the narrative built together. If you like games with grand story arcs but don’t have the time, this game is perfect for you! How it tackles diaspora, community, and colonization is beautiful and thoughtful.
Some things I absolutely love:
- PLAY AS YOU LEARN!
- The Map is incredible. Aesthetically, narratively, innovatively, I love it. It’s both an actual map and frames the narrative orbit that you’ll be playing.
- I love how the roles are laid out, this game is GMless in a very nice and approachable way!
- The character table is full of great and simple ideas that go a long way, worth grabbing even for other sci-fi games!
- The halfway point is brilliantly brought on! This game knows how to take you through learning it and then asking you to make thoughtful decisions about the story moving forward and your own characters. For how much the game gives you specific prompts and has a specific story to tell, CBOM is wonderfully approachable and open to you taking the wheel
- How it treats your characters at the end of it all is beautiful and harrowing. It truly knows “living with pain past the moment of violence.”
I bought it for $15 and it’s definitely worth each buck! I can’t wait to play this, and as a designer, I will definitely be thinking about this game and how it works moving into my own stuff! Please buy it