Matthew BaileyGenerally speaking, about once a year a game comes along that becomes the game of the group. Two years ago it was Sync and Sand, and last year Subway Squeeze took that crown. If I had to go out on a limb and say what potentially my favourite family game is going to be this year, it might very well be Light Speed Arena.
Played with Jack (.8.), Toby(5) as well as a number of 13-year-olds from the school where I work.
Firstly, let me say that everything you see in this review is based on a prototype, and as such there might be some changes between now and the final thing. But to be honest, this is one of the best-quality prototypes I’ve ever played.
Each player chooses a color and you lay down two asteroids on the table. This works particularly well as I have a big space-themed playmat, but this would happily work on any surface you can think of. Each player has eight ships and a base.
Having laid out your base in your part of the board with a restriction of 10 centimetres from the edge, you then shuffle all of your ships and place them in a pile outside of the play area face down.
All of these ships have numbers on them, and what those numbers mean is the order in which they are going to fire, starting at turn one and moving along to turn eight, with the catch being that you are not going to draw them from the pile in the turn order they are going to fight, which means having to manage in your head what is going to happen and when.
Each ship is equipped with guns of various different degrees of power, ranging from one to three, and some ships have shields. All ships also have a health value that can be shown by the amount of red lights on them.
You then, using the special app designed to work with the game, start the timer and the game asks both players to simultaneously place one ship at a time in the game area, with you trying to place your ships in such a way so that they shoot by following the lasers in a direct line at other ships, asteroids, or the opponent’s base.
After you have placed all of your ships at the same time according to the timer, this is where the absolute genius magic comes in.
You then use your device, whether that be an iPad or a phone, and take a photo from above of everything you have laid. The game then animates the entire battle turn by turn on the device in front of you, exactly as you laid all of the ships. I have played this game at least 20 or 30 times and even though the app is also in beta, it has always worked flawlessly, and as a design and technology teacher, this is extremely impressive.
The feeling of hitting a really far away shot from the other side of the table on the app, even better if your laser manages to narrowly snake through some other of your own ships, is an amazing feeling and the quality of the sound effects and animations on the app really bring the whole thing to life.
What is also really nice, and I think a really good decision, is just prior to the Kickstarter launching they have decided to also offer an analogue downgrade pack so that you can play the game without an app and do it manually if you so choose to, which is a really nice touch and shows that they care about their customers longer term.
Once you’ve got used to the game, you can then add in extra powers via the asteroids, which is really the pièce de résistance of the whole experience. The four asteroids that are available in the prototype that I played include ones that give you extra points for really far away shots, extra points for narrow misses of your own, the ability to hit the asteroid and then have it reflect onto an opponent ship, and also winning points for being the five closest spaceships at the end of the battle.
I don’t think I could recommend a game more strongly than I am going to recommend Light Speed Arena. I have not played anything quite like this before and definitely haven’t played any kind of AR interaction that works as well as this does. The production values are unbelievably high and it works absolutely flawlessly.
Light Speed Arena is going live on Kickstarter today (8th May) and I cannot recommend it more. I myself, even though I have this perfectly functioning prototype, am going to back the final game purely so I can get access to the extra ships and powers that are going to be available in the final product.
If you want to try it, you can sign up on their website currently and receive a free print-and-play demo to try out at home, which is also a really cool nice touch.
The absolute strongest of recommendations I can conceivably give, this really is something special.
I have put a video below of it working.
Disclaimer: A prototype copy of “Light Speed Arena” was provided for free by “Tablescope.” All of my thoughts and opinions are, however, my own, although I will openly admit they are really nice guys 
