itch.io

OK - I've temporarily split All Errors are My Own into 3 files, as the formatting issues appear to be occurring due to the document size. I've not spent a huge amount of time validating this is correct, and this will definitely result in further links breaking between the files. If I do have to permanently use this fix, I'll split the document by era rather than alphabetically but this will take a lot more work.

Apologies for not picking this up and this temporary state of affairs shouldn't hopefully last for too long.

OK. I can see the issue. I’m not sure why this is occurring - the document is built using a very old version of LaTeX and I have barely changed this document between updates. I’ll have to start digging. This could take some time.

Can you give me some example pages you’re seeing this on?

Those aren’t the formatting errors I was aware of. I’ll have to look further into it.

I've added the updated infrastructure chapter excerpt, which I had missed from the original release.

Update 6 makes the core game playable solo.

I've updated All Errors are My Own to update 6's text. I've been unable to fix what is a bug with about 8 or so references in the rule book that I've spent multiple nights trying to unsuccessfully fix. Hopefully it won't affect you.

I've also done a minor cosmetic update to the Crewed Rules to remove some blank pages.

It could just be everyone ticking "not human" on the latest census form. It's really up to you.

Update 6 is now out. I said it would be modular but it’s ended up being the biggest single update to the game.

so far

Normally you’ll only visit 1 solar system in a sector  so you can just generate the systems on a table and choose one.

I’m less worried about sharing LaTeX source because it requires a version that I don’t believe is available any more.

With regards to the issues with coloured dice, dropping counters and so on, I think the minimum lovable product version will be the best approach. That way you can solitaire play the major part of the game with much reduced record keeping. All of the counter/dice interactions are for “zoomed in” parts of the game and zooming in is intentionally optional.

A Lot of Zeroes is also a standalone space exploration game that I’ve published except the scale is up to 30LY/cm and up to million year long turns.

I design in LaTeX which supports various epublishing formats as well.

Is the more complex tables something that would be more useful to expose as a spreadsheet in e.g. Google docs?

There is a high frontier site list which has the burns to each site from LEO at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1TGDLdBEEjtkLFcg0j19R_sgRlkmSeIGXIhT_Pyj_rfw/htmlview#gid=0 I had thought someone had made a map planner in Python but all the map resources I can find are visual planners

I can also try rendering the PDFs in various accessible formats, but I really don’t know how to make tables work for someone who is visually impaired: the tables are really complex in some instances, and can also use colour to convey some information.

However I think the actual fix is something I’m planning for the update after next which is a cut down version of the game which features the “minimum lovable product” which will have you playing as a Mission Control moving your spacecraft around the solar system and rolling for trends.

Throne of Salt is doing another solitaire play through of Sixty Years in Space at http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2025/09/60-years-in-space-return.html

At this stage of the design it’s a worker placement board game.

Just a heads up that it looks like the Shipboard Life rules will be going into This Space Intentionally instead. Colony: Sub/title is morphing into a much bigger thing than I had initially planned. It's all under control, but it just means it'll take a little longer to release.

(they actually do share the same actio resolution system, but half of them are roll over, half of them are roll under, and then there’s A Lot of Zeroes which ultimately doesn’t care and so the SRD system version of this just ends up being extremely confusing to read).

I know you say it's end game content, but A Lot of Zeroes is designed as an introductory game to the series and has much simpler rules than its prequel.

This is a paradox of the whole series of games. For the most part -- (A)-Base (D)-Landing excepted -- the complexities of space travel and colonization get simpler the higher the technology level is. I am flirting with releasing A Facility with Words and Colony: Sub/title as standalone games for this reason -- both have their own character generation systems and I could introduce a different action resolution system that makes sense for each of them (if you think about it, the fast combat resolution in AFwW already is that).

But then I end up in a situation where I benefit from writing an SRD that has the rules common to all games, but the SRD won't have character generation or action resolution mechanics in it which just feels incredibly weird.

I think I know how to square the circle on this and CSt might end up being the first rules I try this with.

OK. I’ll prioritise this and see how much I can get done for the next update. The work I’m doing on Colony: Sub/title touches so much of the rules that I’ll have to do an update for all the Sixty Years in Space rule books anyway.

If I’m going to do it, I’d rather use eg PDF layers to allow you to toggle the notes on/off and at that point page references are the least complex of part of what I’m trying to do

This is the sort of thing that’s quite hard to do using the current development pipeline I use. I’ll investigate what options there are.

For anyone else reading, I’ll respond with answers to more general questions here: this is for typographic stuff which won’t have much relevance for anyone reading after the next update.

My email is andrewdoull@gmail.com

Looks like I missed cleaning up the references to BSU in a few places. You are correct - this is a High Frontier 3rd edition concept.

I do need to introduce the colours a bit better as well. The Development path table is the best place to try to understand what these are in the current rules. 

Thanks for the feedback.

I ended up deciding that the A Lot of Zeroes update was large enough to qualify as a full update -- update 6. It is out now.

Update 6 for A Lot of Zeroes is out - you can now get the first 48 pages for free. The full release notes are at the link.

At the same time, I've released some minor updates to Sixty Years in Space which fixes a long standing bug with the indexes, and one formatting issue in Sixty Years in Space.

No. A Lot of Zeroes is completely standalone. You just need pencils/pens/erasers, paper and dice. I recommend having some A3 paper but two sheets of A4 or even letter is perfectly fine — given how little measuring is actually required to play.

Update 5 was a massive amount of work over a very short time period: I wrote over 100 pages of rules in 3 months during the development process. I'm still really happy with what I was able to do across multiple systems, especially in making the Exoglobalization era feel like humanity moving throughout the solar system in a way that honours the core conceits of the game as well as a lot of the changes that made it into High Frontier 4All, and in fully realising A Lot of Zeroes as a standalone game which had been a long held dream of mine.

Commercially, it unfortunately doesn't appear to have paid off. While the visits to the itch pages have been as high or higher than many of the other updates, the sales bump from this update has been drastically lower. I think this is as much a marketing issue as an accessibility issue. I dropped a whole new game without much marketing, and then gave it away to everyone who had already bought the supplement it was based on (I am very smart).

I'm going to try a different approach for update 6, and see if it has any impact, by breaking up these big updates into a lot of smaller, more frequent ones.

First, I'll be releasing an incremental update for A Lot of Zeroes. I realised almost immediately after releasing the latest update that there was something I could do to significantly improve the economy of the game which at the moment doesn't provide incentives to entered civilised space. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but this update (call it 5a) will add in fragments, which you collect from system infrastructure from within civilised systems, and which allow you to work incrementally towards answers in even smaller ways than currently possible. It's been a very quick turnaround from conception to implementation, to the point where 5a will probably come out within the next 2 weeks. 5a will include a bunch of small changes all over the rules because fragments touch the game at so many points.

Secondly, I've got to get the new supplement for the Futures era to the point where I'll be able to release it. It's called Colony:Sub/title and will focus on political intrigue, exploration of living ecosystems, and atmospheric and undersea travel. Because that includes a bunch of rules that were excised from A Facility with Words, I'll initially be releasing it as pay what you want, before making it a full priced supplement after a suitable time interval (which may include a full update). It'll also include a chapter on Shipboard Life chapter for crews to have more ways to spend their time during extended voyages.

Thirdly is the alternate release strategy I'm working on: I'll be releasing a lot of smaller supplements, rather than big monolithic books. These are going to focus on a particular area of the game in more detail. I've talked about Epic Hazard Operations, and had hoped to include it with update 5, but it hasn't worked out quite that way. EHO will instead be released as a standalone game - a rules light introduction for the map-based play that doesn't rely on the High Frontier map. It'll be in the exoglobalization era, and A Facility with Words will act as the expert set to EHO's basic rules, as it were, allowing you to just buy those two books without having to get the Crewed Rules (if for instance, you want to play a pure High Frontier 4All compatible game).

Then I have a big list of potential ideas for further supplements. I don't want to reveal titles and much in the way of contents at the moment,  although a close reading of the text may reveal some, but there's essentially going to be supplements for each era, that provide more detailed interactions for specific parts of the game. Think of them as adventure modules, but as if some of the adventure modules allowed you to replay the base game in radically different ways. Others will just be a bunch more stuff. For instance, I have faction specific missions for about 60% of the factions in All Errors are My Own which I ended up cutting from those rules, that I should probably release as a supplement at some point.

DriveThru versions have been updated as well.

The more I think about this, the more I realise this will turn into a retelling of the flatmates from hell.

I've dug these up and have ended up starting to rewrite them, inspired in part by https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/06/seven-part-pact-time.html

Email sent.

Drop me an email.

> I'd assume whatever ideas you have planned for how combat resolves would be a bit abstract to fit with the rest of the game and not require some battle map or something though?

I haven’t sketched much out at all to be honest, because I had a feeling the level of granularity that people would like would be beyond what I’d be willing or able to deliver. It sounds like maybe I should be just licensing your game…

I was planning on doing something more granular with zone warfare which would have an energy map of a moon system with a scale of months rather than years, where attacking factories to impede production would make sense.

Is it ok to say that I don’t think there’s a paradox in largely unplayable but still beloved indie games? Or more specifically that the paradox can be resolved by accepting games don’t have to be played to be enjoyed?

(Also check out my 2000+ page indie game…)

I do have month by month rules for resolving operations using an event card based system that I’ve already written and play tested that I shelved because I didn’t see how it fit into the game. I think that’s probably what you’re looking for; I think it’d fit best in the “trading a crew for their first human interplanetary space flight” rules I’m planning for the Re: Crewed Rules.

I have Black Silicon planned and would love someone else to write it as I only have so much time in my day. I have also pencilled in a similar supplement for interstellar travel that will be similar to the High Frontier Interstellar rules I developed.

Me experience with watching the Expanse is that the parts of the show wandering around space stations as they fell apart were so much better then standing on the flight deck that I’m focusing on those parts of the game first.

You will be happy to know that I’ve already developed life path rules that work while you travel, but not at the month by month (or smaller) scale that I think you’re asking for.

Thanks for this feedback by the way - it’s a useful lens to think about things in the game.

I suspect its based on the interest level of the author in the thing being described.