BEYOND THE SUN

We join Dennis Chan for his debut game. Join us as we explore the furthest reaches of space, and the full extent of an upgrade tree

Words by Christopher John Eggett

As first games go, this is an interstellar point to be launching from. Dennis Chan, a software engineer by day and a games designer by night, is the creator of Beyond the Sun, a sprawling and crunchy game of intergalactic upgrade paths and deep space exploration. Published by Rio Grande, the game comes with some prestige, and a whole lot of upgrading and resource management. We talked to Chan about his game, and what sparked the engines for this exciting launch into the breach.

“In 2015, I was obsessed with the computer game Civilization V. I just loved its tech tree, and the feeling of excitement every time I ‘powered up’ with a new technology,” says Chan, “And then I thought, ‘Hm, I haven’t seen a single board game that has a real tech tree like that.’ So, I started doodling tree structures on my notebook and wondered what kind of boards I could construct with it.”

This is the heart of Beyond The Sun. While plenty of games have this kind of ‘upgrade path’ mechanic in them somewhere, there’s something fundamental to the way it appears in Beyond the Sun.

“As for what to put inside the tech tree, ‘worker placement’ immediately came to mind. In games like Agricola, Le Havre, and Lords of Waterdeep, players start the game with basic and core actions only, and as more buildings and spaces get unlocked, the decision space grows,” says Chan, “So I thought, ‘what if players unlock new spaces in a tree-like fashion, and what if players get to choose what gets unlocked?’ Combining those ideas, the initial prototype for Beyond the Sun was born.”

“ Every game is different, and players have to make interesting choices every turn ”

GROUND CONTROL

It’s a pretty lofty place to start your game design career, so we asked Chan how he moved from just being a gamer, to designing games.

“When I moved to Boston in 2012, I was looking around to meet gamers, and I stumbled upon the Boston Board Game Prototyping Meetup. I didn’t know anything about design at the time but had a lot of interest in it, so I attended, watched, and learned,” says Chan, “I played a lot of prototypes, some great, some not, but it was the not-so-great ones that inspired me – I learned that no game came out perfectly on the first try, it was not embarrassing to show people an incomplete idea, and those ideas were often the ones that sparked the most interesting discussions.”