By now, it's probably apparent that I enjoy world building. I love the little details that bring imaginary worlds to life. It’s probably more accurate to say that I obsess over them–maybe a little destructively so. I get consumed by flurries of tangents and back stories, and then make the exceedingly brilliant decision to hold all of it in my head until it's perfect. It's super productive.
One of the many benefits of working with Andrew and Rob is that we kind of feed off each other. When a brainstorm starts rumbling, it's contagious. We start slinging ideas at each other, and in no time at all, we've pulled together something that has all three of us saying: “We've got to write that story!” As you can probably imagine, that's what happened with Light Racer.
The Game That Started it All
We've been doing a ton of world building and storytelling on this Substack, but there's a lot more to this project than weekly serials and obscure lore tangents. Stellar Empire has been around for a while, and my first exposure to the project came in the form Stellar Empire: Skirmish. Skirmish is a 2-player card game that I generally describe to people as an evolution of the classic War. I wasn’t part of the team then, but I did back the Kickstarter, and I do have a copy of the game (along with a pint glass and some really nice coasters that I keep on my desk).
This is a really important detail for me—in part because I feel compelled to make sure people know that
named the Rogers Republic,1 but more because I need people to know that I’m a fan of this franchise.I get excited when I get a text from Andrew to say the next Empirefall chapter is ready for Rob & I to review. Most of the time, I need to read the chapters two or three times because I’m too busy enjoying the story as a reader to look at it as an editor.
When Rob & Andrew asked me if I wanted to be a part of this, it was a resounding yes.
The First Campaign
As we were working on the initial launch of the JAMR brand, there were two key things on the table.
First, Andrew wanted to continue pushing Stellar Empire content. Skirmish was a solid game that performed reasonably well for a group of guys doing this as a hobby, and at least a couple of the folks who backed the game asked Andrew when the next Stellar Empire game was coming.
The other big ticket item was a board game called Light Racer that was loosely based on the light cycle races in Tron.
In classic Andrew fashion, Light Racer was basically finished. All we really needed to do was finalize some artwork and then pull together enough money to start printing it. Given the success of Skirmish, we looked at running another Kickstarter campaign, but we had some trouble pulling together backer rewards.
The game itself was a lot of fun, but, we needed some more substance to entice folks to back the project. The game didn’t have a lot of room for flair. We had a stretch goal that would replace the printed game board with laser-etched acrylic tiles, but that was about it.
Light Racer needed a story.
What if we make it a Stellar Empire game?
I don't remember who voiced the idea first, but it completely changed the trajectory of the project. Suddenly, things started falling into place. As a team, we were a little hesitant, because we didn’t necessarily want to put all our eggs into the Stellar Empire basket just yet, but for me personally, the damage was done. My imagination was off to the races, and nothing was going to stop it.
What is Light Racer?
Light Racer isn’t just a game. It’s the game. If you read Andrews post about FTL communication, you may already be familiar with the Mother Stones. That’s where this all starts.
As Andrew called out in his post, interstellar communication is hard. Technology always has a limit (until someone finds a way to push past it). Smart phones are great—until you’re in a rural area with no cell towers.
In Stellar Empire, we’ve got several very advanced factions with empires spanning multiple star systems, but sending messages between them can be expensive, unreliable, and slow.
DigiSports2 aren’t a priority in that ecosystem. So, while individual galactic regions may have popular games and competitions, there was no definitive galactic favorite until the RGC3 got their hands on a Mother Stone and said “what if.”
LionFire: Prove the Impossible
The RGC were pioneers in the realm of FTL communication. There were dozens of groups studying the Mother Stones and the communication potential they represented, but the Rogers Gaming Commission was the first to bring something to market, and it just about printed money.
The Starchild Gaming Network is backed by the Gahnxite Mother Stone, which is unique even among Mother Stones, as the Rogers Gaming Commission claims to control every last fragment of this particular stone.
The RGC’s flagship video game product is the LionFire gaming platform. It was first introduced to the galaxy as a proof of concept virtual world with a small bundle of rudimentary applications designed to demonstrate the capabilities of the network. One of those applications was Light Racer—a modern take on an old form of gladiatorial combat popular during the height of the Rhyno Confederacy.
The original sport—colloquially referred to as the Death Race— was played primarily by criminals forced to compete for the pleasure of society’s elite. The contest featured a number of highly unstable hovercraft that were difficult to control and prone to crashing in violent fashion.
The main objective for competitors was to survive by any means necessary, which usually meant forcing rival racers to crash. Winners of the Death Race would be granted partial pardons for their crimes, and, if they survived long enough, the most successful would be able to earn their freedom—though very few competitors lived to see such a reward.
Though the physical sport had been officially outlawed for some time, it was still well known, and the simple rules made it easy to translate to a modern DigiSport.
The Galactic Phenomenon
The RGC was not prepared for Light Racer’s success. The original version of the game pitted groups of 30 - 60 players against each other in a battle royale matchup.
Unlike the physical sport, Light Racer's vehicles left a trail of energy in their wake that formed temporary walls designed to obstruct players' path through the playing field. Colliding with one of these walls would cause a player's vehicle (and their avatar) to erupt in a colorful explosion thereby eliminating them from the game, and the round would continue until only one racer remained.
The RGC designed Light Racer to be incredibly simple hoping that the easy mechanics would draw people in. Their goal was to stress test the system and prove that it could handle the traffic.
Players flocked to the servers, and it out performed every one of the commission's expectations.
The DigiSport Revolution
The Rogers Gaming Commission realized they had something special with Light Racer (and, by extention, LionFire), so they decided to keep the project around and introduced a massive update which included more refined rules and an immersive spectator mode built on top of LionFire's social module Commune4.
League Play
With the new features came the rise of rudimentary league play. Early Light Racer leagues functioned a lot like gaming clans in the early days of the internet. Groups of players would get together and organize tournaments among themselves.
Those games were held in virtual arenas that leveraged Commune’s social engine to create realistic 3-dimensional spaces for spectators to watch the races first-hand rather than on a computer screen.
The player community established a set of basic scoring rules for league play that most leagues followed. Although there was some variation, the most common scoring breakdown awarded 1 point per takedown5 (up to a maximum of 3), and 5 points for a victory. Players would also lose 1 point for a Spill6, and 2 points for an elimination. After a pre-determined number of matches, the player with the most points would win their league.
Some leagues required a buy in in order to participate. A small fee would grant access to the league for a single season, and a portion of the entry fees would be distributed to the league’s top performers when the season was over. Over time, the more popular leagues were able to secure corporate sponsorships, which drastically increased the prize pool as well as the number of spectators.
State Sponsored Monetization
The Rogers Gaming Commission was the first to bring something to market, and it just about printed money.
I want to circle back to this because it's significant for a couple reasons.
Light Racer proved to be incredibly lucrative for the Rogers Republic, because they were able to take a cut of every financial transaction executed on the LionFire platform. This included ad revenue, ticket sales, prize money, and the digital gambling dens that started popping up as Light Racer’s popularity spread.
The professional Light Racer circuit was the premier DigiSport everywhere. Think NFL or Premier League soccer, but on a galactic scale. LionFire brought the galaxy an entertainment platform that everyone could use and experience together in real time, and people were obsessed with it.
While player-run leagues continued to exist, the game’s best players all migrated to state or corporate teams on the various professional circuits which offered considerably higher payouts to their top performers.
Light Racer turned the Rogers Gaming Commission into an entertainment juggernaut, which worked out really well for the Republic, because the RGC was able to funnel a chunk of that monumental revenue into their secret side projects—but I'll save that reveal for another time!
If you want to learn more about Light Racer, you can check out the full article on the official Stellar Empire wiki.
I had a whole post about that story, but decided to write this one instead.
Because any good sci fi author has to have a more science-fictiony term for its real-world inspiration
Rogers Gaming Commission.
LionFire markets its product line as modules rather than standalone games, and provides a set of modding tools that allow players to leverage those modules in other experiences. More on this to come.
A Takedown occurs when a racer collides with another player's trailing barrier or vehicle.
A Spill occurs when a racer collides with their own vehicle's wall or an environmental barrier—such as the outer wall of the arena.