GD: Print-and-Play Step Two: Deconstruction

Space Junkyard

Goal of the Game
The goal of Space Junkyard is to harvest resources from space, fix old spaceship parts, and fit these fixed parts onto the helm of your ship. Each spaceship part has an assigned value which is counted up at the end of the game to give you your final score. You add up the points on each part and take away points for every open path a part has. The game ends when you run out of cards to place on the grid. Up to four players can take part in this game.

Core Mechanics
The core mechanics of Space Junkyard are movement, acquisition/storage, building, and tile placing. A turn is usually broken up into these four actions.

•  Movement

Each player has a ship that they use to move around. You can usually only move between one and three squares in a turn either horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. You cannot move off of the grid, nor can you occupy the same square as another spaceship. If a Radioactive token is used, you may make a second turn in which they can again move anywhere between one and three squares.

• Acquisition/Storage

At the beginning of each turn, you can harvest one Radioactive token and store it in your spaceship helm. As you gather more spaceship pieces and attach them to this helm, you can harvest more and different kinds of tokens according to the symbols on the part's card. You can also only carry as many tokens as their current ship build will allow; with just the helm, they can store two Radioactive, two Scrap Metal, and two Mechanical tokens. This storage space also will change as the you adds more parts to you ship.
Tokens can be used to repair spaceship parts and fix them onto your helm. Radioactive tokens can also be used to give yourself an extra turn.

• Building/Scrapping

When you move onto a square, you can flip that square over and see what it is. Asteroids can be scrapped and will yield one token per each asteroid of the same colour. So, for instance, if you get a card with one blue asteroid and one red, you will get a Scrap Metal token and a Mechanical token.
However, if you land on a spaceship part, you have two options: you can scrap it and get the respective tokens as marked on the card, or you can attach it onto your spaceship helm if you have enough tokens to spend.
Once a card has been turned over and you chose to scrap it, it is placed in the scrap pile and cannot be used in the game again.

•   Square Movement

Finally, at the end of your turn, you are able to pick up a square from the pile and add it onto a row or column on the current board. In doing so, you move all the existing squares down a rung and knock the last square off. This square then is lost in space and is placed on the scrap pile where it cannot be reused. If a player is sitting on this square as it is knocked off, they become stranded in space and must use their movement ability the next turn to get back onto the board again.

Space of the Game

 Figure 1: A layout of the board with spaceship counters in beginning position

The game takes place on a 6x6 grid constructed out of the asteroid/spaceship part cards flipped over. These squares are 2D discrete areas on which the player can set their ship, though as the game progresses and more cards are removed from the grid the player may find their ship 'floating in space' with no strict square to be placed on. Each player also has a space where they store their resources and build their ships.

Objects, Attributes, States

• Spaceship

Figure 2: The four spaceship shaped counters used in the game

Now, the spaceship is technically two things: the spaceship shaped counter you use to navigate the space of the game, and the spaceship you construct with your helm and all the pieces acquired from the grid. 
The spaceship counter itself has a move attribute in that it can move anywhere between one and three squares in any direction that isn't diagonal. It can either be on the board or off the board, but when it's off the board it has to move onto the board within the next move.

Figure 3: A spaceship helm with three fixed pieces attached to it

The spaceship construction has the building attribute: it will grow when the player adds pieces to it. It also has a scoring attribute, as the scoring system is based off the final spaceship assembled at the end of the game. Each spaceship piece has a numerical score on it, but for every passage that isn't attached to another piece the score goes down. 

• Resources

 Figure 4: The three types of resource tokens.

The resource tokens are used to fix spaceship parts and attach them to other pieces on your spaceship. They can either be Radioactive, Scrap Metal, or Mechanic. There isn't much of a difference between these, except that spending a Radioactive token can give you a second turn. The state of a token is either 'I have this' or 'I don't.'

• Asteroids

 Figure 5: Various types of asteroids

Asteroids are part of the grid, and their locations are usually unknown to you until you discover them. Each asteroid card has a different configuration of asteroids on it, and the number/colour of an asteroid will dictate what kind of resource tokens you can harvest from them. So an asteroid card has a known/unknown attribute, a colour attribute, and a number of asteroids attribute. The state of these attributes will inform how you will harvest them.

• Spaceship parts

 Figure 6: A spaceship part. This particular part can be scrapped for two Scrap Metal, one Radioactive, and one Mechanic. It can store two Scrap Metal tokens, and gives one Scrap Metal token to you per turn. It has three open paths to connect to other parts.

Similar to the asteroids, spaceship parts are part of the grid and share the same known/unknown attribute. When you uncover a spaceship part, you activate the scrap/fix attribute-- you can scrap the part to take its resource, or spend resource tokens to fix it and add it to your ship. To add it to your ship, you need to pay the resource tokens shown on one side of the part, as well as the resource tokens on the part that you want to attach it to. Every spaceship part has a score attribute, a scrapping attribute, a resource-storing attribute, a path attribute, and a resource-giving attribute. Given these attributes, you will consider whether or not it's worth scrapping or fixing. Some parts, considering their scores, may make no sense to fix.

Operative Actions/Resulting Actions

• Moving Spaceship 

With every turn, you can move your spaceship either once or twice. Moving your spaceship twice means removing more squares from the board, which quickens the gameplay and potentially denies an opponent a chance at getting resources. Once the board becomes more empty, you can remove squares nearest to your opponent by claiming them first, leaving them with nowhere to go.

• Acquiring Parts

When you land on a spaceship part, you can choose either to scrap it or to fix it. This is an exercise in opportunity cost-- does the amount of resources you can harvest outweigh the score of the piece? Sometimes a piece has three potential pathways and is only worth one score point, making it senseless to fix unless you have three other parts to fix onto it. Some parts will only have one open path so that when you use them, they will essentially close off your potential to build. 
There aren't any resultant actions from acquiring parts that affect your opponents, besides perhaps challenging them to get more parts to compete with your obviously superior spaceship.

• Moving Squares

At the end of your turn, you have the ability to change the layout of the grid. You can move along one column or row by adding in a new square, knocking off whatever was at the other end of the row or column. There are two strategies here: either you're trying to fill the grid with more squares and fill in the empty spaces left by the scavenging, or you're trying to get rid of resources near your opponents by knocking off nearby squares. You can also knock your opponent off the board, but usually the penalty for that sort of thing is less than the benefits. If you're knocked off the board, you can enter again along whatever column you were nearest. So, essentially, if you're knocked off, you can move three extra squares than usual. Some may try to knock themselves off the board specifically for this reason.

Rules
I think I've already pretty much covered the operational and foundational rules of the game. The actual written rules themselves come in a nice little packet with diagrams in case you get confused. It offers three optional game modes you can play-- a two player game in which 16 squares are already moved from the grid, a 'more junk' game in which you can add a second square at the end of your turn if you scrapped two asteroid squares during your turn, and a 'less empty space' game in which you don't move the gaps when you add a new tile to ensure there is no free space on the grid. The rules add that these games can be combined as the player sees fit.
We couldn't think of any house rules when we were playing, as the game itself is already pretty complicated.
An advisory rule I can think of is try not to fix ship parts with three or more paths. There's almost no way the benefits outweigh the eventual cost. 

Skills
A lot of this game is about weighing costs and handling resources intelligently. Understanding the cost-benefits of fixing a certain piece and acknowledging the inherent chance built into the game are also skills that will help.

Chance
Chance plays into this due to the unknown nature of the grid. Will you land on an asteroid? Will you land on a spaceship part you can afford and will help you store resources? Will the resources you harvest be the ones you need in the next turn? These kinds of uncertainties will plague your playing experience ceaselessly.

I really can't reiterate enough how much I enjoy this game. The graphics are crisp, the gameplay fresh and interesting, and it's just competition enough to give it an edge without getting people too worked up. I would highly recommend it.