I’m running Mars to Stay at LinCon in four weeks. Mars to Stay is a story game about building humanity’s first colony on Mars. The 2023 edition plays without a game master so my job is to hand the players the material needed and divide them into groups of 4-6 players.
As I started to prepare the handouts, I got an idea to create the progress tracks as plywood puzzles using the laser cutter at Folk Lab. In Mars to Stay player characters roll dice after each chapter to see if they succeed improving the colony. The better they roll, the better their odds of survival in the epilogue at the end of the game. A bit into the story they get the option of trying to catch a ride going back to Earth. Just as in The Martian, a good deal of ingenuity and improvisation is required. This leads up to the final choice of whether to stay on Mars, living the rest of their lives on the red planet. Or to return to Earth.
The story the players create together shape the choice: What are their individual motivations to go to Mars in the first place? What reasons do they have to maybe return to Earth? And what are the odds of survival by staying on Mars and by going back to Earth?
The game uses two tracks: A Colony track to track the progress of the colony. A Return track to track the progress of building a return vehicle. For LinCon I decided to change these into puzzles using the skills and tools I have learned at Folk Lab the last couple of months. It took one morning to prepare the files for the laser cutter and it took one evening to print three sets (You can find the files here and create your own puzzle!). I’m very happy with the result — I think it will be great fun to assemble the puzzle as the story evolves.
There are still seats remaining — you can sign up and join a team for the opportunity of a lifetime.