USA visit and Spiel 2025
- Vincent Verhoeven
- Sep 15
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 16
Intro
This blog entry took me a month to complete. Enjoying the procrastination of a project that is starting to weigh on any enjoyment I had working on it in the past. Nevertheless, I continued the necessary Essen Spiel preparations that called upon me since August. Spiel presence is on, and a production for 2026 that doesn't involve crowdfunding platforms lays now on the table. It goes without saying that language choice, humanoids, expansions and most miniatures will not be joining the production party. To rekindle my obsession with the project, I do what I like doing best: sharing info on my knowledge and discoveries concerning astronavigation.
1. Holliday
I took a well in advanced planned vacation to the USA with my family in July, that started the weekend after the last campaign. It gave me the joy and peace I was looking for after work studies and campaigning. I managed to keep the project out of my head most of the time. Sometimes, it was haunting me with ‘’what’s next?’’ Looking back at another “crowdfunding” failure, my decision was clear as it can be. No more crowdfunding shenanigans for me. Clearly not my thing.
My feelings towards the project were met with a lot of doubt and scepticism when I realized how peaceful I felt when I took that mental distance from it all. Souvenirs that I obtained during my stay in the USA were often clouded by a lot of cynicism looking back at how I wanted to translate my passion for astronomy and space faring into a boardgame. As an example the magnet that has a laugh on the moto in the game “Follow the stars and reach for the moon” with a dinosaur’s apocalyptic perspective on it: “Reach for the stars… oh”. I also got an Apollo 13 baseball ball with “Failure is not an option”, which was my mindset to get this far in not giving up. Now I could just think to ‘throw’ it away if I had the opportunity.
Pictures of magnet and baseball souvenirs by Vincent
I did find some light in the darkness while visiting Washington DC, Long Island and New York City. While visiting several Smithsonian museums, the Goddard Space Flight Centre, the Intrepid Aircraft Carrier and other venues spiced with astronomical references, I did get a glimmer of hope to continue this journey while seeing all the glory that is packed inside the game.
Pictures taken on holiday by Vincent
Both I, my son and my wife really did enjoy our stay in the States. Looking at some scenery with a unique perspective thanks to my obsession for astronomy and spacefaring, rekindled my focus on the project. As I am always grateful for my niche and very loyal audience, I intent to share some of the hidden astronomy marvels I came across during my wonderful stay in the USA.
The Navy and Astronauts
In one of the pictures above you can see me and my son sitting in a Gemini capsule on board of the Intrepid Airplane Carrier. The Intrepid now celebrates the its Mercury 7 and Gemini 3 capsule recovery history as a Museum docked at one of NYC's bays. As you can see, the Top Gun (Fighter Weapons School) link and Maverick hype fuelled my son's already great affinity for fighter jets via Ace Combat video game. You can imagine that the eagle is his favourite character in the AstroNavigators game. He ran around as a little version of Pete Mitchell or Neil Armstrong and we roleplayed an NCIS investigations on the carrier.
Geo and astro references in New York
As an astronomer myself, everything related to stars is directly recognizable, from flags, instruments to statues. Strolling around in NYC, seeking to find every building reference from the board game Santorini New York, I stumbled upon Prometheus and Atlas at Rockefeller.
The golden Prometheus with Zodiac ring reminded me of some Hawkeye Marvel series scenes, but what I didn't realize, was that the statue was adorned with a zodiac ring, depicting all the ecliptic constellations (except for Ophiuchus). At one of the exits, I also stumbled upon a giant Armillary on the back of the statue of Atlas. Not only are the zodiac signs nicely sculpted on the ecliptic ring, it also mentions all the planet symbols on the base arch supported by Atlas' shoulders. All these symbols are incorporated in AstroNavigators as well.
A bit further we entered the Grand Central Station where the ceiling has the artistic depiction of the zodiac constellations on the ecliptic.
On another day trip outside of NYC we stumbled upon another game link. In Queens we came across this giant globe with longitude and latitude references inside a light depiction of an armillary sphere. This giant sculpture is called the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.
Pictures taken on holiday by Vincent
Astronavigation on Apollo missions
During our visit in DC's Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum I shared my inside on astronavigation during the Apollo missions. Highlights were the Space Sextant (SXT) and Scanner Telescope (SCT) on a recovered Command Module capsule. If you interested in a detailed explanation of the SXT and SCT, do visit one of my older blogs at https://www.astronavigators.com/post/onboard-spaceship-navigation. One of the most interesting discoveries for me in the exhibition however, was the star sighting simulator for navigation training to the Moon and back called The Star ball Command Module Simulator. In a detailed picture that follows, you might recognize the Orion constellation. Orion was also depicted in the Apollo mission logo for not only defining the celestial equator with its belt of stars (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka), but also as good reference to the lunar orbit within 5.1° tilt.
Pictures taken on holiday by Vincent
The star images projected from the computer-controlled ball recreated what astronauts would see through their spacecraft window. The constellations on the ball are mirror-image reversed, because they were projected via a complex series of lenses and mirrors. The starfield was accurate enough that the astronauts could practice navigating by it.
UV Telescope on the moon
The museum also displayed the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph brought to the lunar surface by the crew of Apollo 16. Because UV light is largely filtered by the Earth’s atmosphere, the lunar surface was ideal to observe this kind of wavelength. A gold-plated telescope was used to take 178 images of the universe and the Earth’s outer atmosphere. Gold plates and gold mylar is used as protection from solar radiation, like most space vehicles, astronaut visors and instrument are covered with.
2. Spiel booth
At the moment I am preparing Spiel. Initially I had hopes to have the Late Pledge period during Spiel, but that is not going to happen. My intention is to fresh up the website and have a registration form for those who are really certain to buy a copy after production. A counter will keep track of the registrations. Once it has hit at least 200 registrations, production will be a fact. To promote the game further for the registration, Vicky and Ewout will demo the game at booth number 4A115. You can schedule and register your game table via Booking | AstroNavigators. We will provide 2 tables. One where a full game can be played and one to give short demos of a couple of rounds. Painted miniature will be displayed as well with the purpose to sell STL’s and promote reservations even more.
3. Reserve a copy
I am looking to offer AstroNavigators after self-financing the production in its purest and smallest form. Therefore, I need to save some money and rely on the amount of registrations set via this website. Implications are that it will push the publication for the planet expansion to a later opportune date. The miniatures will be offered in some way on the website, but I am not yet sure how to offer production or STL-files in a secure way. Also, Spiel will give me a chance to seek production alternatives with a lower minimum production and maybe with a few miniatures.
Since we have to keep a modest production, the first print will be a basic version, but there will be a tray for holding the continent and trajectory tiles. Humanoid card versions and the sphinx module might not be part of this print due to the main illustrator’s communication and working pace. However, I am not excluding this part of the game yet. I already paid for the art, but has not been fully delivered yet. Communication replies about them also stopped after the campaign. Furthermore, there will be no expansion development until the base game is well out there. This does mean that nearly everything is ready for printing as it is, except for the rulebook. Until February 2026 I am saving money to invest in the production, but please make the reservation to help me organize the production amount, freight costs and tax calculations. The reservation form will be activated and shared with you in the next blog: once a new price estimate has been calculated.
4. Table Top Simulator
I am dedicated to concentrate on a new TTS version, reflecting the final base game for printing, including the rulebook. It also functions as a rehearsal for the final print production. A second version with the sphinx module will follow once the basic TTS version has been published.
5. Rulebook
The Achilles heel of the last campaign is going to be the main focus in the coming months and gets a new design to be revealed in the TTS-version. It was the main reason that content creators, like Rhado and Gaming Rules, ended up postponing filming to finally unable to make a video altogether, costing me a lot of exposure. They were both keen on solely working from a rulebook and not direct contact, which would have worked much better as proven by JonGetsGames. Rhado was even leaning on Gaming Rules for the rules, so everything fell like domino stones in the time sensitive chain link.
On that rulebook note, I did get in touch with Miguel for the rules via Gaming Rules which helps tremendously for the end results, although too late for any crowdfunding related videos.
I started to meticulously analyse the design of the board game rulebook Unconscious Mind, since Miguel contributed to it with the same rules layout strategy.
6. Final Thoughts
I have been working on this game idea for nearly 10 years, and preparing for this version for 7 years. Publication of this game is going to happen. The steep learning curves during the crowdfunding didn't have a desirable outcome, but did stimulate the further development to a higher level. Learning and stumbling in development is over. Time to deliver the product to the loyal followers and go to the next stage.
Ad astra!
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