Star Quest (board game)

Star Quest is a science fiction board game designed by Ed Curran and Tom Walcyk and published in 1979 by the Operational Studies Group as one of its small pocket sized microgames. Built for two to six players, it casts each participant as the head of an interstellar trading house whose ships must destroy every rival fleet and seize control of the star system to win. Movement uses a momentum based system, so that ships continue drifting in their existing direction unless a player spends effort to change course, and combat is resolved through missile fire, with unpredictable hyperjump maneuvers letting ships reposition suddenly around the board's central star. Physical components are minimal, an eleven by seventeen inch hexagonal map, one hundred counters, photocopiable plot sheets for planning moves in secret, and a four page rulebook. The design was directly inspired by Space Wars, a 1977 Cinematronics arcade video game built around similar orbital movement and missile combat, translating that same core idea into a tabletop format playable by more than two people at once.