The Space Gamer

Space Gamer was a periodical that once published Traveller articles.

Description (Specifications)

Space Gamer supported a number of other games and authors, but it included nearly the whole gamut of early Traveller authors and artists as well.

Traveller Articles

Space Gamer Traveller Articles

Name	Author	Date	Issue	Remarks

1. Robotics for Traveller Tony Watson 3 Jan 78 SG 15
2. Addendum Equipment and Weapons Robert P. Barger 3 July/Aug 78 SG 18
3. Psionics in Traveller Kenneth W. Burke 2 Nov/Dec 78 SG 20
4. Alternate Characters for Traveller Forrest Johnson 2 Oct 80 SG 32
5. Ithilien Class Mark Chittenden 1 Oct 80 SG 32
6. More Psionics Kenneth W. Burke 1 Jan 81 SG 35
7. Pawn of the Fire Web K.L. Jones 6 Feb 81 SG 36
8. Ya Wanna Buy A Used Ship? Tim Brown, William A. Barton 2 Apr 81 SG 38
9. Rumor Reliability Steve Winter 1 May 81 SG 39
10. Aboard the Leviathan Marc W. Miller 2 Jun 81 SG 40
11. Adventures on Tschai Steve Winter 8 Jun 81 SG 40
12. New Space Combat System Steve Winter 3 Jun 81 SG 40
13. SF Character Contest Results ??? 2 Sep 81 SG 43
14. Expanded Combat William A. Barton 4 Sep 81 SG 43
15. AFV's in Traveller Donald Gallagher 10 Oct 81 SG 44
16. Terrorists in Traveller Kenneth W. Burke 3 Dec 81 SG 46
17. Flare Star (part 1) J. Andrew Keith Jun 81 TSG 46
18. I'm a Doctor, Not a... J. Andrew Keith 2 Jan 82 SG 47
19. Flare Star (part 2) J. Andrew Keith Feb 82 TSG 48
20. Tools for Terrorists William A. Barton 3 Mar 82 SG 49
21. Flare Star (part 3) J. Andrew Keith Apr 82 TSG 50
22. Omni Car, The William A. Barton 1 Jun 82 SG 52
23. Flare Star (part 4) J. Andrew Keith Jul 82 TSG 53
24. Splat Gun, The William A. Barton 3 Oct 82 SG 56
25. Chainsaw Combat Christopher Kupczyk 1 Apr 83 SG 62
26. Interdiction Station Marcus L. Rowland 10 Feb 84 SG 67
27. Competitive Citizens Dan Perez 2 Aug 84 SG 70
28. Pre-Enlistment Skills Warren Okuma 1 Apr 85 SG 73
29. Stiletto Class Yacht Gary Reilly Apr/May 87 SG 78
30. Manhunt Bill Cassell SG 81
31. Ranger Class Courier James B. King SG 81
32. Tarragon's Heir Michael O'Brien Dec 89 SG 84
33. Starjammer Class Yacht Gary Reilly Jan/Feb 89 SG 85
34. Corsair Contention James B. King Jan/Feb 89 SG 85

External Links

1. EXTERNAL LINK: Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer
2. EXTERNAL LINK: The Space Gamer homepage at Better Games.

History & Background (Dossier)

Meta-history & Background: The Space Gamer was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the late 70s through the mid-80s. The magazine is no longer published, but the Better Games maintain a web presence using its final title Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer.

The Space Gamer started out as a quarterly publication of the brand new Metagaming Concepts company in 1975. Initial issues were in a plain-paper digest format. By issue 17, it had grown to a full size bimonthly magazine, printed on slick paper.

When Steve Jackson departed Metagaming to found his own company, he also secured the right to publish The Space Gamer from number 27 on. The magazine stayed with Steve Jackson Games for the next five years, during which, it was at its most popular and influential. In 1983, the magazine was split into two separate bimonthly magazines: Space Gamer (losing the 'The' with the split in Number 64), and Fantasy Gamer; the former concentrating entirely on science fiction, and the latter on fantasy. This arrangement lasted about a year. Fantasy Gamer ran six issues before being folded back into Space Gamer. Steve Jackson Games published through issue 76 (Sept/Oct 1985).

n 1986, the magazine was sold to Diverse Talents, Incorporated (DTI) who continued the magazine with the same numbering and format (after a gap of nearly a year and a half), but with the name Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer. The trademarks to Space Gamer and Fantasy Gamer was then sold to World Wide War (3W), a company which for a brief time tried to ascend to the top of the adventure gaming hill. They also purchased Strategy and Tactics. Alas, WWW also went down like Metagaming, and Space Gamer ended up in the hands of Future Combat Simulations (FCS). After publishing just one issue, FCS could not continue and a year later FCS declared bankruptcy. After passing through several hands, the Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer trademark got passed to Better Games.

Better Games now publishes Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer as part of their online gaming system. They have published eight issues.

Credits (Primary Sources)

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at The_Space_Gamer. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science