I love this ruleset and play it regularly. Infinite Galaxies is an amazingly multipurpose system that has proven itself (despite it's scifi trappings) to be remarkably settings-agnostic; to the point that I have used it for settings as varied as pulp WW2 adventures, amodern-day sci-fi scuba campaign   (with a touch of Jeffrey A Carver), and of course, its namesake ... role-playing in a broght future.

I have used it for survival in the wilds - I have used it for sky pirates - I've used it for Nausicaa style settings and in one case used it to throw the players into the battle of Agincourt (time travel schennanagens, naturally) and not only did it not break, but it could have worked for longer play.

Granted, for a full campaign, anything before the turn of the 19th century is probably pushing it to breaking point, and

ure, you need to rename "laser rifle" to "rifle" occasionally, but the underlying moveset is so refined that it works pretty much out the box for just about anything!

As you would expect of a good PbtA rules system, the moves are tight, on-point, and narratively driven. This is Dungeon World but in Space (or in my case in anywhere post-gunpowder)

The art is charming, though it has a pulp scifi vibe, and the text well-explained and well thought out

I heartily advise this to anyone wanting a multi-purpose Sci-Fi PbtA system!

TL;DR -- I advise trying this game: but aware; it can be pretty heavy going when it doesn’t really need to be. There are a lot of moving parts to learn: some of those moving parts don’t mix very well with some of the other parts, but as an experience, it is interesting enough that I definitely suggest giving it a go!

This is an interesting title that I want to love, but find my opinion of it lowered every time I play and butt up against random walls of needless complexity that feel out of place with the tone of the game and the engine it runs on.

The most glaring issue is that, while the silumationst style air combat is gritty and detailed... it is heavy: I'm sure you could achieve the exactly same level of air combat fun with fewer rules.

As an example from the manual, "I dive in, Attack, and pull up afterwards" requires six moves to pull off: Altitude Adjustment, Open Fire, Pull Up, and Altitude Adjustment, Extend, Cool Off..... why!? Is it more fun than just using one or two moves? It’s certainly more simulationist - but is simulationism necessary for a tabletop roleplaying game?

The answer is "maybe". Some folk like simulationism. Heck, even I like it - but when I play a PbtA game, I want a PbtA Narratively driven experience. I don't necessarily want to track how much speed I gained during the decent and how that impacted the engine and how that affected the performance and how that performance translated to G-forces and how that G-forces affected certain moves (and the speed factor (the 10's place in the speed dial) and altitude factor (10's place in the altitude dial) affected the performance of the engine.

These are all things that could have EASILY have been handled by the partial and complete success conditions on a single move. Clearly, in this case, the author wanted to create a detailed, rule-heavy system for dogfighting, and that is alright... but I still ask whether it is better than the alternative. Why is it this complicated? What does it bring to the table?

I can see why they used the underlying PbtA engine: it works amazingly for the "down time" in between the sorties. You gain stress flying your plane and you destress to gain experience on the ground, and it's mostly a narrative experience, and PbtA is PERFECT for this. You then get narrative>simulationist whiplash as soon as you're in the air again and you need to use six moves to dive and attack someone.

So... Now that you've flown a few sorties and got some money behind you from your mercenary work, you decide you want to upgrade your plane...

Well... remember how the air combat is simulationist? There is so much number crunching behind the scenes, that they need an entire applet to handle creating a plane.

It is safe to say that this is really a "Powered by the Plane Builder" game. The builder is incredibly granular, incredibly detailed, and very dense. It is a very powerful tool to design your aircraft... you can design every aspect of your aircraft - let me quickly run through one I just made. My plane has a windscreen, x1 collimated gunsight and telescopic sight, uses a custom engine with power 50, mass 3, drag 3, reliability 12, cooling 13, overspeed 128, fuel consumption 1, altitude 0-49, torque 4, rumble 0, and cost 23 - when combined with the radiator and no cowls (it is a pod mounted engine of course) with a gear(4) propeller, it has 50 power, a mass of 3, drag 11, reliability 8, visibility -2, overspeed 384, cost 27, raw strain 0, and requires 2 sections of aircraft. The radiator, if you're wondering, is a box-type, and is inline, uses mineral oil, and is hardened. The aircraft is made from four sections, using wooden spars as the frame type, and moulded plywood for the skin. The tail is also wooden spars and moulded plywood - this is a monologue design. This gives it 33 structure, 9 drag, and cost 9. The wings, while we are on the subject, are unstaggered, and shoulder mounted plywood wings with an area of 19 and a span of 11, 0 dihedral and 0 anhedral. They also have a gear-level wing which is made from cloth canvas (rather than plywood and has an area of 9 and a span of 8. I'm not sure why. It has 1 tailplane and 1 tailfin (drag 9 total) and for control surfaces uses flaps in all categories except flaps and slats. It has 2 steel N-struts and 1 wooden V strut providing reinforcement, and is wire supported too, giving a raw strain of 93, a structure of 24, drag 14, mass 3, cost 5, and an aircraft max strain of 36. It uses 1 internal fuselage tank, and.... somehow has 125 fuel. Not sure how it worked that out but it did. It has a boat hull, and, to summarise, the final aircraft costs 55, with 5 upkeep costs. It has a full fuel boost stat of 8, 96 handling, a rate of climb of 10, a stall speed of 5, and a top speed of 28. At half fuel, the boost increases to 9, handling remains unchanged, and the rate of climb increases by 1. Propulsion-wise, it has a drop-off of 11, overspeed of 100 (WOAH! that is high), 125 fuel uses (also very high. 7 is what you'd generally use in real game terms), 8 reliability (cool!) and an ideal altitude of 0-49. Aerodynamics, stability is -1, energy loss is 5, turn bleed is 1, and uses a boat hull for landing and it's flammable. Survivability the crash safety is -1; toughness 12, max strain of 36, and communications is loud yelling. It is a sesquiplane. It has 1/0 crew members, with a visibility of -5, attack modifier of 1, escape 2, flight stress 1.

Try saying that on one breath. There is no way you could have made that plane without that builder.

That was sarcasm; I was able to make my own condensed plane builder using a single table and a modularised design system to make it fit on two A4 pages.

I done that because it turns out my players don't need the level of detail the plane builder provides. It turns out they don't want that level of detail... because it turns out they will immediately abstractify the aircraft into some simple, game-specific terms that means they never needed that level of detail in the first place… not for this game. If they wanted that level of simulationism, they’d have gone elsewhere.

"So, if the aircraft builder is so complicated... and you get a good 50 odd aircraft in the free aircraft catalogue... why bother with the builder?"

Well, the problem is that you need the builder to upgrade your aircraft... to quote the manual: Upgrade your plane by making the changes you want in the Aircraft Builder. The cost of the upgrade is the difference between your plane’s price new and the post-upgrade price, minus any parts you provided. There’s a minimum charge of 5þ: either labour cost or rent on a hangar.

You might think you could simply swap out a gun or two and call it a day, but technically speaking, doing so would change your plane's stats. Let’s just upgrade our basic machinegun to a light machinegun (slightly lighter... probably... it doesn't actually say how much lighter it is in the manual)... Here we are! So... Boost went from 8 to 10, the stall speed decreased by 1, the rate of climb increased by 2, and the max strain went up by 1. I have notably changed the specs plane by swapping out the MG for an LMG.

Those were weapons… those are simple – woe betides anyone even trying to guess how many changes you need to make if you change the engine out! It's great! It's detailed and very well developed... is it what my players want for a tabletop game? An online applet that I guarantee you will not last forever? Nope. They wanted a game for the tabletop.

How can it be that a game like "Infinite Galaxies" allows you to build entire spaceships using only a few pages of parts and a character sheet for it - but building a wooden frame with paper wings is no numbers-heavy that it needs an app to handle the calculations?

The answer is that "somebody wanted a simulation of aircraft and then glued it onto a PbtA system to try and provide a framework for it”. There is the kernel of something great here... The setting is great... the on-the-ground stuff is great... the cycle of gaining stress in flight and destressing is great... and then there is a cumbersome air combat system that doesn't really add anything tacked on top of an online builder that you need if you want to get the most out of this game. The airborne combat is granular enough that it undermines the narrative power of the PbtA style moves – and the narrative power of the PbtA style moves is hampered by the number crunching of the simulation side. Neither play to the strengths of the other – they feel at odds at each other, and the complexity of the plane builder exemplifies this disparity very well.

The thing to remember is that, while I may prefer lighter rules, and feel the tone of the game would improve by simplifying the air combat rules and making them even more narrative driven (dungeonworld or infinite galaxies level of lightweight), the author clearly didn't. The author felt their medium-to-heavyweight ruleset for air combat is what they wanted - and credit to them, it is a robust air combat system that is really good - one of the best I've ever experienced, in fact... and I respect them for that

Despite my criticisms, I heartily advise trying this Powered-by-the-Airplane-Builder game; but be aware, it can be pretty heavy going when it doesn’t really need to be. There are a lot of moving parts to learn: some of those moving parts don’t neccesarily mix well with some of the other parts, but as an experience, it is interesting and exciting enough that I intend to run it again (with a few house mods to replace the plane builder… just to make the experience of "playing with planes" less of a chore.)

--EDIT-- I decided that everything I said is both a pro and a con. It is heavy and it is definitely "a lot" - but I'm not sure that "a lot" is actually better...

Pros: can be simulationist. Cons: can be simulationist.

The game is very, very good, but not neccesarily great - your mileage may vary!

Happy flying!

CONTACT! SWITCH ON! ::makes airplane noises as I fly off into the distance::