hiya, here are some stray notes i took while reading this one!

love the race setup, and especially love these MMC dirtbags. and some of the more alien aspects of the ASA were unexpected and v cool (walking in only cardinal directions, e.g.)

the random organism table feels great. and MMC countermeasures escalate well.

the contrast of the natural beauty of the planet and the danger hits real well. 

i like the integration table, especially stage 2 -- introduces really cool RP opportunities at the table.

great stuff here! i am a big fan of the "pretty/deadly" vibe, and the barely understandable intelligence of the planet. nice work!

Lots of juicy details between the organisms table and the multiple clocks - this feels like it would be a blast to explore as a player. I feel like the landmarks would benefit from a small node map or even an in-world screen or blueprint keyed to show where everything is in relation to each other. I like your layout overall, but I personally found the color combos and the stroke border around header text lead to readability issues. Overall a very interesting scenario that I think would be a blast as a player, but that could be easier to parse as a GM. 

Though the 'living planet' trope is tried and true I feel this stands out as special due to the deep really well though out use of real biology. The organisms generator is really really awesome and I *LOVE* the MMC. A handfull of well written rotten bastards to hate is always a plus. All in all this is really great! Less experimental, but what it lacks on that front it MORE than makes up for in the amount of love and care that has gone into the game design, world building and text. Amazing job!

Very solid and content dense scenario, I could see myself improvising and running a session or two based off of this with relative ease. I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of the presentation, but there seems like there was a conscious choice to pack as much info as you could regarding actually running the adventure which I appreciate just as much as a fancy layout.  

Polish - 3.5/5   

The layout aesthetically is a bit rough but otherwise doesn't get in the way of the content, not a huge fan of the purple/green on black color choice though personally. Writing is good and very descriptive, I really liked the NPC descriptions in particular. Landmarks also have great descriptions, but part of me feels like they could be edited down a bit for better readability at the table. Bullet points could go a long way for some of the info being presented. I'd probably want to reorganize the information present in this for my own notes vs running it straight from the pamphlet with how it's presented right now.  

Favorability - 4/5   

This has great "gold rush" vibes to it that could easily attract the attention of the player crew, has a natural ticking clock in the form of the surveyors/planets, and there's enough content here to get a game running while being evocative enough with its living planet concept to allow easy improvisation. Docking a point just purely because of table readability being an issue, particularly when I'd be scanning the landmarks for relevant information to convey to the players.   

Usability - 4/5   

There's a lot here that's usable right off the bat and I feel like I can run this with only a little extra legwork to piece it all together. In particular the planetary awareness/integration mechanics are fantastic and serve as this looming clock ticking in the background that the crew won't even be aware of until they've likely already started integrating. Inclusion of the random "organisms" table was a great way to pack in a lot of enemy variety without having to devote the space to several different unique monster types.

  My only big gripe is with the point-crawl aspect of the pamphlet, although this might just be confusion on my part. In the Navigation section it seems to imply that the way you progress through the landmarks is in sequential order: so 1-2-3-4-etcetera. It works, I just think it'd  more interesting if there's diverging paths the crew can decide between taking and reasons they might want to take one versus another. This is where I feel like the space for a small map could have helped a lot because my first impulse if I ran this was to spend the time quickly mapping out my own, it's not really something I'd want to come up with on the fly during an impromptu game.   

Theming - 4.5/5 

Again, love the gold-rush surveyors feel to this. The planet itself being a super-organism as well as the overall threat players face from integration is a clever take on the overall theme.

This module gives me a lot of Annihilation/Scavenger's Reign vibes which is good as hell! It's got an engaging hook and the ongoing "starve or further your assimilation" push/pull is an AWESOME dynamic to get players role-playing and interacting with your NPCs. It's all organized well and it's dense without being difficult to read.

I do feel that the visual treatment, while solid in its own right, doesn't really mesh with the content or themes. Following the "field journal sketch" aesthetic direction alluded to by the illustrations would make a lot of sense and communicate the themes visually as well as textually.

When it comes down it though, the writing is what matters here, and you've got some winning writing. Lots of fun levers to pull and likely multiple sessions of evocative alien wilderness crawling. What's not to love??

The organisms give me the creeps : good job 

The organism table is really cool for creating unique monsters. The green highlight on some the text might be a bit too faint - I had to strain my eyes a bit to read it. I like that the module has several elements that escalate overtime such as the integration tracker and the awareness table.