Planet Shark’s creators want their bite-sized game to be more than extremely cute predators

Planet Shark’s art and miniatures immediately grab your attention. In a field dominated by power armored space marines, mecha, dragons and assorted historical soldiers, you can’t help but take notice of a range of adorable shark people with very big guns. How do they pull the triggers with their cute little fins? Who knows? Who cares?

The Planet Shark Kickstarter campaign, which consists of STLs and physical miniatures, is the result of a partnership between artist and game designer Scott Knees — better known by his alias Spectralidax — and Taiga Miniatures, a new brand from the folks behind DakkaDakka.Store. 

In today’s attention economy, where media of all kinds lives and dies based on how quickly its pitch attracts eyeballs, the proverbial sizzle is often prioritized over the sausage. That’s fine if you just want to paint a few miniatures, but with so much competition in the skirmish space, wargamers are learning to be much more discerning. Planet Shark has a freely-available ruleset, but it’s still very barebones, something which Knees and his collaborator David Rueppell are only too aware of.Rascal chatted to Knees and Rueppell about the new version of the Planet Shark rules that they’re working on, their philosophy for the game, and the challenges of designing a game to be more than just its eye-catching aesthetic.

This interview has been edited for clarity.