Battlestar Galactica and Spimatic Meaning in Games - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 80

diferences between the two series, C. W. Marshall and Tifany Potter argue,
however, that “our familiarity with the earlier work informs how we interpret
a given episode, and our analyses are the richer for it.” 10 Interestingly, my
game group's understanding of the two board games based on these shows is
also richer for having played both: we found playing the BSG08 game to be
narratively satisfying in part because of the paucity of narrative in the BSG78
game, and we enjoyed comparing the detail on the miniatures in BSG08 to the
ones in BSG78 .
Instead of narrative exploration, the BSG78 game highlights a spatial
awareness of the original text. his is particularly relevant in keeping with
the original text's focus on deep space: as Geraghty notes, the original 1978
series tended to draw “upon space exploration as a narrative template.” 11
Typically (and usually pejoratively) seen to be a Star Wars “knock-of,” the
original series used the metaphor of humankind escaping the Cylons as a
chance to depict space battles. 12 However, as Geraghty points out, “thanks to
production values that promised groundbreaking special efects but instead
delivered the same recycled ight sequences week ater week,” the show died
prematurely. 13 hese space battles oten fell into a traditional trap of deep-
space science iction stories: the uniplanar depiction of space. Space is rarely
conceptualized as three dimensional, as the spaceships all tend to orient in the
same direction and attack each other from one plane. In her Screening Space ,
Vivian Sobchack calls this an “excess of surface,” wherein the “hyperspace” of
science iction “is proudly two-dimensional—even in its depiction of three-
dimensionality.” 14 Such lattening of space ignores scientiic realism for the
aesthetics of familiar Earth-bound combat, where foes face of on the same
dimensional plane.
he BSG78 game cleverly mirrors Sobchack's excess of surface via its two-
dimensional game board (Figure 4.1). he basic game play follows four Vipers
engaged in mock combat to capture a Raider. At each corner of the game board,
the Galactica sits in a diferent color matching the color of the player's Viper.
he damaged Cylon Raider starts the game in the central space of the board.
Each Viper starts on its similarly colored Galactica ; and it is this color coding
that provides the “third dimension” of space. he colors do not depict four
diferent versions of the spaceship, but rather illustrate a three-dimensional
spherical curve in two dimensions. Imagine that each corner Galactica is
actually the same ship, the board curved into a sphere with the Galactica and
the Cylon Raider at antipodal points. However, instead of being able to travel
through the sphere (as the Vipers would in normal space), due to the limitations