I took Space Dealer for a spin with two others. Interesting. I'd like to try with four (and the advanced rules); the first play makes me glad I didn't pull the trigger and BBB (Buy Because of Buzz).
The gimmick, sand timers you assign to actions combined with 30 minute time limit, works. The (basic) game works. [The 30 minute soundtrack works, but could be better]. It's fine. I hadn't heard any description beyond that, and the theme. So let me describe the game.
The main board forms a circle -- Player planet, neutral planet, player planet. You have a nice (3-D) cardboard ship that starts at your planet. Each player's infrastructure builds up around a frame that shows what you can power. The timers represent "robots" (aka workers). You assign them to a task and, a minute later, you finish it. One action is to build infrastructure -- mines, power plants, storage, converters, etc. Once you build the cards, you place them (hooking into a power source, if required). Infrastructure cards also form your 'demand.' Other players deliver cubes matching to your homeworld, scoring for both of you. [The person making the delivery gets more, of course]. This image helps. The infrastructure shown has timers on the fusion mines (which generate four cubes!) The demands run along the bottom. You can see the ships moving around the system in the upper left (timers on ships activate them for moving).
Competition is (in the basic game) indirect -- one player may deliver ahead of you (each delivery is only required once). And whenever you want more infrastructure, you draw two cards and keep one (which you place in your R&D centers. You can't discard it a timer). [Players also have a hand of standard stuff they can use]. There aren't enough of each item for everyone, so you have scarcity. Deliver later, and you'll use those cool fusion mines (four cubes a minute!). Of course, someone slogging away with basic mines will have beat you to the delivery.
The advanced game adds direct conflict (weapon modules, and the like) as well as just more stuff. Haven't tried it.
In any case, everything works. The game held my interest, felt brisk. Didn't wrack my nerves ... minute timers give you enough time to think. But they did keep pressure on and cause mistakes (on my second flip, I started the wrong action, only to notice 10 seconds later I had ordered it poorly).
So, nothing wrong. A good game. Novel. But I didn't feel that "I must play again" vibe that great exude. Who knows, perhaps it will grow on me. Here's the thing -- If you had action points instead of timers, I'd probably play this twice, and then play it again only when asked.
Do timers change the nature of the game? Not in any fundamental way. They limit the action points (one timer flip equals one action point). For those stuck with slow players the timers are manna from heaven. That's not a big problem here. If you said "You get 56 action points, everyone spends two at a time simultaneously) and you had a minute to decide, you'd be about the same. The timers do decide on things like deliveries that would be simultaneous in my system, but they add sloppiness to the game. [No two timers are the same, and both owners discussed how they had tried to 'balance' the pairs of timers so that the fastest was matched with the slowest. Ugh.]
Still, I'm glad there are local copies. I'd like to try it again. Perhaps four players (or the advanced game, or both) really livens it up. I'm not sure if I cautiously recommend, or recommend caution, but Space Dealer is worth trying. Preferably before you buy.