The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora

The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora is a science fiction board game published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1980.

Cover of the boxed edition, 1980

Description

The B.S.M. Pandora, a biological survey mission space ship in the distant future, has crash-landed on a planet during its mission to collect alien life forms. The crew faces two dangers: if the ship systems fail, they will die; and the dangerous alien life forms they had been transporting have escaped and are now roaming the ship. In this cooperative game, 1–5 players act as crew members trying to find tools to repair the spacecraft before the systems fail, as well as searching for weapons to kill or recapture the escaped aliens.

Components

The game comes with:

• 11" x 17" paper map of the ship
• 100 die-cut counters
• rulesheet

The boxed set also contains two 6-sided dice.

Publication history

SPI published The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora in the May 1980 edition of Ares (Issue 2), a game designed by Jim Dunnigan, with artwork by Joe Barney and Redmond A. Simonsen. The game was also released as a boxed set.

Seven months later, SPI published a prequel game, Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora, in the January 1981 edition of Ares (Issue 6), to explain how the ship had collected the aliens before it crashed. A boxed version of it was also released.

Reception

Craig Barber reviewed The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora in The Space Gamer No. 31. Barber commented that "For solitaire gamers, WOTP is a good game choice. The game plays best with very few crew members running around. I would recommend this as a good one-person game."

Other reviews

• Moves #51 (June/July 1980)