Space Station Survival: a placemaking game
created by Margo Gray
As part of the Leadership Council of Space Station Zax, you are entrusted with the community’s most important work: making the station a place where the next generation can thrive. You’ll have to stand up for your values and make tough decisions while navigating the opinions of your fellow councilors. But beware - it may be impossible to get what you want without letting go of some personal cargo.
This board game allows players to step out of their comfort zones and explore ways of building a community with people whose values conflict with theirs. I facilitated this game at the Placemaking - More than a buzzword symposium in Granite Falls, MN in April, 2024.
Participants said:
“I heard spontaneous laughter, exclamations, and play throughout the conference room, even while being engrossed in my own table’s game. That was another good indicator to me of the game’s design quality. I would enjoy playing this for pure recreation as well as using it as a very effective tool for team building, organizational, and community work.”
“The board game was great! It did a good job of identifying classic dynamics of collaborative/community projects with JUST enough humor and distance to make it fun.”
“The Space Station Survival game was a real highlight.”
“The maker of this game is BRILLIANT. I could not believe the detail and deep thought that went into it. I was blown away.”
“I loved this game, for its rich value for any group work and for its stand-alone entertainment value. The premise of doing projects on a space station as a… society of aliens was enough of a step removed from the real world to prevent immediate coding by participants into things they already had preconceived judgments or opinions about. The game blends individual motivation and shared goals, even in its structure of how to win. The design of the player options is nonjudgmental and agnostic in ways that are appropriate to one of the goals of the game—to provoke thought about approaches to community or shared work and the choices we make along the way.”
In symposium feedback, 100% of respondents said that they saw connections between Space Station Survival and their work. 84% said that the game helped them think about placemaking and/or collaboration in a different way.