What is ...in Spaaace!?

…in Spaaace! is the next iteration of roleplaying evolution! It radically reinvents pleasure as we know it! It’s a blasted-open universe waiting for your characters to seize it by the reins and leave every other science-fiction setting gasping in your dust! It’s all things to all fanboys! It’s got ninjas! Monkeys! Robots! Robot ninjas! Monkey robots! Monkey robot ninjas!

It’s in your face! It’s in your funny bone! It’s in the bedroom with your significant other while you’re running out to the video store to return that overdue copy of Plan 9 From Outer Space!

Um… okay.

What, didn’t that make you want it? C’mon, it’s great!

Could you try explaining it without the usual new-game hype?

…in Spaaace! is a short roleplaying game by Greg Stolze. It’s loose, fast, short, improvisational and hopefully very funny. The rules encourage outrageous absurdity and the sketchy setting is mostly a backdrop for pratfalls and free-form examination of those themes central to so much of Mr. Stolze’s ouvre.

What themes are those?

Pyrokinesis; the repercussions of avoiding personal responsibility; buttocks.

What’s an ‘ouvre’?

It’s a French economy sub-compact with a surprising amount of legroom and incredible gas mileage.

Back to the game. Could you describe it in the fashion of a Hollywood movie pitch?

It’s like Star Wars: Attack of the Clones meets Sir Mix-a-Lot’s video, Baby Got Back.

Now can you describe it in Forge jargon?

It’s a bifurcated system that transposes narrativist and gamist elements in an oppositional framework – indeed, the game has manifold oppositional components – to achieve an overall substitutionalist stance. It’s diceless. It may also be postmodern, but the mouth-swab got lost at the lab so we need to wait another two weeks for them to grow a replacement culture.

That was gibberish.

Please rephrase that in the form of a question.

That was gibberish – wasn’t it?

Yes. It’s just a placeholder until Ron Edwards can tell me what I think.

Where can I buy this game?

You can’t buy it, but you can make it free for everyone.

Rather than track downloads and worry about the .pdf winding up on Kazaa or Morpheus or some other trendy IP-brothel-of-the-week, …in Spaaace! is set up through Fundable.org. Click the …in Spaaace! link here and you can make a ten-dollar donation. When the $750 limit is reached, enough to pay for the cover and reimburse the author at a reasonable rate (under five cents a word), the game gets released as a .pdf download, free for everyone.

Is this like that ‘Ransom Model’ thing you were experimenting with in 2004?

A bit. It has the same collective spirit, in which people can give a lot or a little, depending on their level of interest and curiosity. The Ransom Model worked just fine for Meatbot Massacre and you can now download that, for free, alleluia.

But if I pay a ransom, haven’t the terrorists won?

Not anymore! With the fundable system, you get your money back if there aren’t enough people invested to get the game liberated. Find me a flesh and blood kidnapper that reasonable.

What if I want to give more than ten dollars?

Then God bless you, guv’nor. Just make more than one contribution. If Fundable.org doesn’t allow that, they should, and I shall have harsh words with them.

In summary: The game is written, tested, complete and it’s got lasers. You pay as little as ten bucks, or as much as you want to underwrite it – just like a big shot underwriting public art, only this time there’s lasers! If it hits its goal within a year, you get the game, and so does everyone else. If it doesn’t make its goal, all the donors get their money back. No risk. Cool game. Cash for Stolze. Lasers!

Click here to join the curious…in Spaaace!