Space Pirates!
At the start of 2025 I took a long sabbatical and left my own company. My wife Cristina is Italian and we always wanted to live La Bella Vita. So we rented out our house in Amsterdam and we left with the kids to Rimini.
I can tell you—it’s an awesome place for families and the weather, food and region is truly amazing.
After 6 months not doing much—not taking into account cooking, spending time with the kids and sports—my wife started to tell me to do something with my life.
Flashback: Last time she told me the exact same thing, it was 2009—our last three months in Melbourne before moving to Amsterdam. Those months ended up being the start of Pirates!
I didn’t know if I could embark a second time on an adventure like this—designing, testing, publishing a game—it’s just a lot of work. Seriously a lot of work.
The thing is—I just like to create stuff and a game is the best of all worlds. Complex game dynamics to tickle the engineer in me. Drawing, sketching and Photoshop to prod the creative in me. Putting it all together in one simple attractive product to excite the product designer in me. And finally, bringing it to market, to awaken the entrepreneur in me.
In short—the idea stuck and it did not take long until I was sketching the first ideas in my digital notebook.
I basically took all the things I liked most of Pirates! and evolved it into a new card game—Pirates in space. How awesome is that? And why cards? I like cards, how they fit the concept and the possibilities they bring to the game mechanics.
Space Pirates game elements
- Starting ship—collect story points to discover a lost planet, while pimping your fleet.
- Space ships—with energy, weapons, boarding and shields.
- Booster cards—tons of different boosters to upgrade your ships.
- Adventures—ships, pirates, transports, outposts and story events.
- Battle—a classic triangle mechanic enhanced with bluffing, battle cards, boosters and energy limitations.
- Energy tokens—powering ships, boosters, trading and outpost bonuses.
Choose one of 4 factions
Dwarf Mining Corporation—Grumpy profit-focused dwarves building weapons out of scrap and old mining machinery.
Brineborn Dynasty—A technologically advanced aristocratic shrimp empire preferring war over diplomacy.
Intergalactic Tribes—Cute but aggressive lemur furballs flying iconic ships with jungle domes.
Corsair Brotherhood—A ragged bunch of smugglers living on scrappy rusted pirate ships and illegal stations.
Prototype v1.7
I have created some playable prototypes and I am now shaving game mechanics and design around gameplay, simplicity, duration and strategy versus luck.
I’m using Python code—with GPT—to simulate battle outcomes and balance ship and Booster card sets: things that ten years ago were not possible yet.
I guess—since I am sending you this update—I am also somewhat committing myself now to bring this to the end :)
Harrrrr!
Jules
Adapted from Kickstarter Update #30. The Pirates! rules section has been omitted here. View the original update ↗