Sunday, April 5, 2020

SPACEMEN IN DANGER!



If you have been following my blog, you know that I've been researching games to play using the ZOOM video conference platform. While many have been figuring out how to play already published games, others have been creating new games.

I came across an interesting article about students at USC creating games for the platform. You can read it here. Inspired, and already possessing a good deal of knowledge about what ZOOM can and cannot do, I decided to design my own game form ZOOM called SPACEMEN IN DANGER.

Feel free to share this free game with your friends, and hopefully, they will enjoy playing it too! If you enjoy playing this game, you can join my Patreon where I create a new Print and Play game each month.

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Spacemen in Danger!
A ZOOM role playing party game for 3 to 20 players
by Scott Rogers

OVERVIEW
SPACEMEN IN DANGER is a hilarious role playing party game where one player is SPACEMAN* with a problem. The other players are MISSION CONTROL who help them solve it with their household items. But with malfunctioning audio, the spaceman can only guess how it could help. Guess correctly to score points and win!

HOW TO PLAY

Each player takes turns being a SPACEMAN who is on a space station orbiting Earth. The other players are MISSION CONTROL.


The Spaceman player may set their virtual background to a space station interior

At the start of their turn, the Spaceman describes, in detail, a DANGER that has happened to them on the space station to the Mission Control players. The problem can be serious or silly, that is up to the player.

DANGER EXAMPLES INCLUDE:


·      A micro-asteroid punctured the hull

·      The retro-rockets mis-fired

·      A dangerous solar-flare is approaching the station

·      The toilet won’t flush

·      The station broke orbit and is hurtling towards Earth

·      The station’s artificial gravity is off

·      Partner’s tether broke during a spacewalk

·      The station has run out of Tang orange drink

·      Solar panel needs to be repaired

·      Helmet is starting to fill up with water

·      The station’s AI has gone rogue

·      An alien has invaded the station


The other players are MISSION CONTROL. HOWEVER, thanks to COSMIC RADIATION, Mission Control is having problems with their communications and they cannot be heard by the astronaut. All Mission Control Players must set their ZOOM AUDIO SETTING to MUTE.



Mission Control has to solve the problem with something around the house

Once the Spaceman has described their problem, the MISSION CONTROL players have 30 SECONDS (One-one-hundred, Two-one-hundred,…) to find an SINGLE OBJECT at their location (home, etc.) that will be used to help the spaceman with their trouble. They then take turns DESCRIBING TO THE SPACEMAN how they must use the item to help them with their problem.

Will you help the Spaceman solve their problem in time?

THE SPACEMAN will then PICK ONE of the player’s items and describe back the SOLUTION. If they have closely described the use of the item, then they get 1 POINT. If they accurately described the solution they get 3 POINTS. The MISSION CONTROL player whose solution was picked gets 2 POINTS.

Once everyone has had a chance to be a SPACEMAN, the player with the most points wins!
 
*Spaceman refers to a player of any gender.
 

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