Asteroid (board game)
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| Into an Asteroid Station, Against a Deranged Computer, To Save a Threatened World. | |
|---|---|
 First edition box cover by William H. Keith, 1980 | |
| Designers | |
| Publishers | Game Designers' Workshop |
| Publication | 1980 |
| Genres | Science fiction |
| Series | Series 120 |
Asteroid is a 1980 science fiction board game published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) as one of their 120 series. Players must destroy a mad scientist's computer-controlled asteroid before it crashes into Earth.
Asteroid is a two-player game designed by Marc Miller and Frank Chadwick in which a mad scientist has programmed a computer-controlled asteroid to crash into the Earth, resulting in an extinction level event, and only one spaceship is able to intercept the asteroid and try to save the world.[1]
One player must put together a team consisting of adventurers — accompanied by Sasha the dog — that will try to overcome the computerized defenses of the asteroid and start the self-destruct sequence that will destroy the asteroid. The other player arranges eight geomorphic tiles to represent the asteroid's cave system and controls the asteroid's robotic defenses.[2]
There are several special rules for various personality interactions. For example, Sasha the dog hates a person called Carter, and will not go through any door that Carter has opened.[3]
Both players may come across some of the mad scientist's other inventions, including a disintegrator pistol and an invisibility belt.[1]
There are various victory conditions that the players can claim; for example The World Preservation victory is achieved if the computer is destroyed; or an SPCA victory is claimed if Sasha the dog survives, and the victory is maximized if Carter does not survive.[3]
Asteroid is a GDW "Series 120" game. "Series 120" indicating that the game should take less than two hours (120 minutes) to play.[4]
History
Originally published in 1980, a second edition was published in a larger box in 1983 with new cover art by Rich Banner. Hobby Japan released a Japanese language version in 1985 with a cover by Naoyuki Kato. Another Japanese language version was published in 2003 by Kokusai-Tsushin.[5]