At Handelabra Games we're hard at work on Sentinels of the Multiverse, and continuing to add features to Sentinels Sidekick. However we're still playing tabletop games, and that includes Galactic Strike Force! Naturally we are thinking about building a companion app for that game.
What would you like to see in a GSF companion app? Let us know below, or over at the Handelabra Games forums.
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
I think this has the potential to be SUPER useful. Especially if there were a way to step it through the phases so the app could show which cards in play activated.
Twitter: imprimis5. Follow away!
Since you asked...
GSF's biggest negetive is the bookkeeping. If I were going to spend money on a companion app for GSF, it would need to accomplish a few things.
1) Eliminate tokens from the table. Weaponry, Defense, Artifact, and Engagment tokens all need to be shifted into the App. This could be done easily as you just need a slightly modified health counter than what you have for SotM Sidekick, or just a one-click marker for Engage/Unengage
2) Keep track of Icon effects. It doesn't need to track the actual effect of each ship, but what would be really helpful would be a visual guide to where on the board your icon effects are so you don't A) Miss any and B) Dont have to scan every card to find the icons. I can imagine a few ways you could impliment this idea effectivly, but to keep visual clutter down and keep with the games pacing, you could have a button to cycle through which phase you are currently in. Once you tell the app "ok we are on the Requisition phase now", it will populate visual markers for where all the [R] icons are on the board, whether it be Opp ships, SF techs, Misson Cards, Sectors, the whole deal.
3) Randomizer. Obvious, but needs to be there.
Those are essential elements that any GSF app would need in order to spend money on it. Thats bare bones, but theres some other things you could add on top of those things to really knock an app out of the park.
1) Swipe-to-move-ships. Self explanitory, but if we could just swipe the ship, or press/drag, to move ships around sectors that would be very slick design and feel really nice. SotM Sidekick needs multiple button presses to rearrange cards which is a drag (good thing its not nessesary for SotM). Ships move soooo often that a quick and simple way to rearrange them is critical since you'll be moving a lot of ships each round.
2) Installed Tech tracking. This kinda goes with eliminating tokens from the table, but its a greater expansion of that idea. What I am thinking is that you can "add" cards to the left side, right side, or above of your ship panel (just like adding cards in the Sidekick app) that would represent your installed techs. Even though the main W/D counter for you ship would just be total Energy, as you remove W and D it would come off your techs like like it would in-game.
3) Art! Who doesn't love art?