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https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-best-rpg-cover-of-all-time.html?m=1
The distress call really does set a mood better than most any illustration I've seen on an RPG cover.
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I remember when I was a young man back in 1977 spotting that black box at a dealer's table in a scifi con. It grabbed me instantly! I purchased it on the spot because I had to know what happened next!
That box cover should be in a RPG hall of fame. For all the reasons in the Knight at the Opera article and more.
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Picked up Traveller in December.
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I got my copy of Triplanetary 2 years earlier by mail order. It was the second space game I ever got.
The first being Metagaming Concepts Stellar Conquest, in a manilla envelope. The first ever 4X galactic conquest game
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Rules were a folder; the booklet came later.
Steve Jackson would LOVE to get the rights to SC, but Howard Thompson has utterly disappeared.
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Then I saw an ad about a new newsletter called "The Space Gamer". I mailed in my subscription, and on a whim I drew a couple of spaceships on the subscription envelope. They were so hard up for art that they printed the art in the second issue. And asked me for more.
By about the third issue I made the cover art.
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Oh, yes. I saw that ad in Analog as well. And instantly bought that game. Space warfare, accurate 3D star maps, what's not to like?
Decades later I recreated the map from scratch, and discovered a couple of mistakes (duplication and coordinate transpositions). Still a great game.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/supplement/StarForceW.pdf
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In the SPI's StarForce: Alpha Centauri TTWG, the designer cleverly set up the economic and military situation with a single postulate: the only interstellar commodity was telesthetic people.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight2.php#starforce
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(SC, Alien Space, StarForce in quick succession)
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My brother and I played Alien Space until we wore out the knees of our trousers. Moving the spaceship tiles with the integral protractor on the floor, taking aim, and seeing which section of the enemy ship you damaged with your blazer beams (assuming you didn't miss entirely). Great fun!
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The game could use a rewrite; not terribly well written or laid out. All those ads!
