Junk Run

“The Galaxy is vast, and full of opportunity for a daring crew with the Right Stuff. For everyone else it can be hard just keeping your ship running, keeping your crew in one piece, and still have a few credits to spend at the next space port. Any crew desperate enough can usually make a quick credit by grabbing certain components from junkyard planets, though it’s risky!”

Times are tough, and sometimes the only way to keep your ship and crew together is to make a quick Junk Run.

Junk Run is available on Cults3D now!

What is Junk Run?

Junk Run is a miniatures game played on a small tabletop surface with around a dozen miniatures, some representing your crew, others the enemies you encounter. You will have 3 rounds to grab as much valuable junk as you can while dealing with the hazards you encounter along the way.

The game can be played with 1 player running their crew and the enemies can either be played by a second player or act according to a few simple rules.

Download the Junk Run PDF Free

Why is Junk Run?

Junk Run came about due to a challenge I set myself to make and release a game in 2 weeks, and playing it should be approached with that level of frantic energy. I really needed a little push to go from someone learning to make miniatures and games to someone who was just making minis and games. I kept thinking about the idea that you can’t expect the first time you make something to be the best, so why not just get it out the way. Of course about half way through I really fell in love with the project and absolutely love the final result.

Is it perfect, or even close? Absolutely not. But having such a short time to make it seems to have just freed my mind to just make whatever came to me and there’s a lot of disjointed charm there. The game rules and theme reflect that and I fortunately had some game design experience from a fairly long running home brew system - though I’m keen to explore new mechanics going forward.

So how does it play?

Honestly, it’s pretty fun. I say that not as a sales pitch but a little out of surprise because of how quickly it came together. The way it works is you have 3 rounds and 5 crew members, you start in the middle of the board and rush out to grab some junk tokens. Each round your crew get between 4 and 6 actions, depending who you choose. Where it gets fun is the junk tokens, yeah you might get a good haul of junk, but then you might get teleported halway across the board into a Rust Bug nest. As the round go the enemies surge forward more and more regularly and it’s really easy to end up getting overwhelmed. But that’s half the fun.

What’s next?

Junk Run will get 1 more update after I have play tested it a few more times. Mostly this will be correcting any small issues but the game is what it is. I do hope to add another enemy to the game so that might happen. Until then it’s onto April’s game… Rogue Element.

Update: Junk Run received an update that included a vastly improved Iron Snake and a few items of errata in the rules.