Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Space Alert is a cooperative team survival game. Players become crew members of a small spaceship scanning dangerous sectors of the galaxy.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Action Queue
Place actions into an ordered queue that resolves now or on later turns.
Area Movement
Move pieces between connected regions rather than along individual spaces.
Cooperative Game
Players coordinate their actions toward a shared objective and win or lose together.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Timed Ending
End the game when a specific timing or state condition is reached.
Read the full game description
Space Alert is a cooperative team survival game. Players become crew members of a small spaceship scanning dangerous sectors of the galaxy. The missions last just 10 real-time minutes (hyperspace jump, sector scan, hyperspace jump back) and the only task the players have is to protect their ship. During play, the central computer will announce the presence of various threats on one of the supplied 10 minute soundtracks that also acts as a game timer. The threats vary from space battleships and interceptors to different interstellar monsters and abominations, asteroids or even intruders and malfunctions on the spaceship. Players have to agree who will take care of which task and coordinate their actions (moving around the ship, firing weapons, distributing energy, using battlebots to deal with intruders, launching guided missiles, etc.) in real time to defend the ship. Only a well-working team can survive 10 minutes and make the jump back to safety. The game offers several difficulty levels, huge variability and a unique experience for one to five player teams. One mission lasts only about 30 minutes, including setup and evaluation. (Based on a description from Czech Games Edition)