Last Steps On Mars

You wake up, disoriented, with your crew of the rescue mission to Mars. Your head feels fuzzy, and you're not sure you remember exactly what happened. You've spent months and months training with this crew, and have formed deep bonds with them. Wait. Did you go to Mars yet? And returned? How can this be?

Last Steps On Mars is a near-future speculative hopepunk sci-fi game about a rescue mission to Mars whose primary objective failed. Players take on roles of the mission crew and explore their connections as they grapple with what happened on the mission. The game is framed as mission briefings, played chronologically in reverse.

Long Description

You wake up, disoriented, with your crew of the rescue mission to Mars. Your head feels fuzzy, and you're not sure you remember exactly what happened. You've spent months and months training with this crew, and have formed deep bonds with them. Wait. Did you go to Mars yet? And returned? How can this be?

Last Steps On Mars is a near-future speculative hopepunk sci-fi game about a rescue mission to Mars whose primary objective failed. Players take on roles of the mission crew and explore their connections as they grapple with what happened on the mission. The game is framed as mission briefings, played chronologically in reverse.

Play starts with a debriefing fresh out of stasis pods after arriving back on Earth, memories clouded with short-term amnesia of the entire mission and training. Scenes play out backwards as players improvise characters recalling their memories, progressing all the way back to the initial mission briefing. During this time, characters will rediscover the bonds they formed during the training and mission.

(up to) 6 pre-cast roles will be determined by survey in advance. Players will receive brief character blurbs before game, and workshop some additional relationship building as part of the game session to help ease into characters and their relationships.