Yeah, it uses an unconventional style for mysteries that can be hard to judge.

If you know about Brindlewood Bay, it basically works the same way. As a mini-explanation: in “Carved from Brindlewood” mystery games, there is no pre-determiend solution. Instead, there are a bunch of clues.

When you want to “solve” the mystery, you come up with a solution that uses as many clues as it can for evidence. Then you roll 2d6 + # clues used - the mystery’s complexity. Roll 7 or more, and you’re correct (possibly with a complication). Otherwise, back to the drawing board.

So these kinds of mysteries are about gathering as many clues as you can, then weaving a solution that uses as many of those clues as possible.

However, being unfamiliar with the rules, I find it very hard to rate.

If you don’t want to buy two different rulebooks (understandable), I suggest skewing your ranking towards the lower end of your range. It’s the “safer” score, and it’s possible any issues you currently have persist even after learning the rules.

Legibility

Very effective in organizing and communicating its contents. There are a few spelling mistakes, but none hinder comprehension. The author regularly places the most important details at the beginning of any long description, and the early GM’s summary effectively contextualizes the entire mission for the GM.

The only ambiguity I could find is with the list of Challenges. It’s ambiguous if all the Challenge items need to be overcome, or if only some need to. It seems to flip-flop between sets of Challenges. A GM can parse it on subsequent readings, but it can still be clearer.

Despite those minor blemishes, this mission is still clear enough in its writing and organization to be easily-comprehended.

Design

The mission starts on a good foot by establishing its core values (anonymity and autonomy) to the players and tying that to a meaningful player motivation (desire to avoid surveillance and access useful gear and NPCs). The setting of the adventure also does a great job of seeding suspicion in the players’ minds: the 10 hour time limit of the NULL zone before it moves prevents players from getting too comfortable in the space, the totalitarianism of NIHIL (even if never exercised) contradicts the intention of the NULL zone that foreshadows the reveal, and even the “everything is a little too quiet” when the players first enter demonstrate the uneasy artificiality of the NULL zone.

In addition, the resolution portrays an interesting test of values for the player characters, whether to reaffirm their commitment to true freedom by forfeiting a useful place that grants them ore privileges or to accept the co-opted “free” situation and willingly submit (either temporarily or permanently).

However, this commitment to unease and transience also creates a feeling of detachment from the NULL zone. For me, this is caused by a lack of any notable, characterful occupants and utilities. There is supposedly a wide array of interesting characters: patrons, fences, merchants, and revolutionaries. But none are actually provided. Not only does this point to the NULL zone’s artificiality and lifelessness, but it also prevents players from caring enough about the place for the final choice to feel meaningful.

Speaking of detachment, the three missions and their Challenges feel sparse, like mere skeletons of missions. They’re reminiscent of the 1HP Dragon (which is neat), but the first two missions feel thematically disconnected from the rest of Welcome to Null and have few details to make them memorable on their own. The first mission resembles a stock cyberpunk adventure so much, that it feels like an invitation to skip or replace it with anything else the GM has.

Aesthetics

Beyond the colorful text and stylish GM info box, Welcome to Null is visually very clean and plain. For me, that reinforces the co-opted sanitiziation of the Null zone itself. My only wish was that there was a proper printer-friendly version of the PDF (with black text on a white background). The markdown version is a helpful addition though.

Thematically, the central tension between true freedom and a carve-out in the existing power structure is compelling. It’s one I can imagine certain players having a genuine struggle with, and portrays the struggles and compromises seen in some real revolutionary struggles.

Suggestions

I only have a few suggestions for a future version:

• Add more distinct characteristics to the Challenges of each mission, tying into the themes of the rest of the piece.
• Provide a list of specific, interesting NPCs in the NULL zone. This should increase player attachment to the Zone and make the final choice more difficult

In the end, Welcome to NULL is an interesting space and plot that I personally plan to use in my next cyberpunk game.

Email sent! Double-check your spam: I find that emails with itch links sometime end up there.

Yeah, uploads are locked during the rating period.

Since itch’s interface is a little weird (and Calvin Ball is separate run from One Eyed Lumberjacks), I recommend actually uploading Calvin Ball as a separate submission. It’s easier for me to allow “late” submissions than it is to let people edit their submission.

Go ahead and make a separate project page for Calvin Ball. Once you do, post the link here and give me your email. I’ll then generate a unique submission link for you and email it to you. Sound good?

Don’t forget to post community copies this weekend, so judges can read & critique it!

Hey Aveox. Sorry for the non sequitur comment, but is there a reason you took down One Page Imperium? My group and I enjoyed it last year, and some other people are interested.

Mapping

If you need to make maps (say, for a biotech weapons lab your players are infiltrating), consider using these tools:

• DungeonScrawl V1 by probabletrain. This lets you produce and style simple gridded maps. Unlike DungeonScrawl V2, V1’s maps are CC0. So you are free to use them in your own creations. V2 does add new features, but keep in mind its licensing.

• City Generator by probabletrain. Generates a modern city building-by-building.

• Dwellilngs Generator By Watabou. Creates multi-story residences, good if you need to break into some VIP’s building or a condemned building (for Urban Exploration).

Love the style! Do you think you could make a printer-friendly version?

Brainstorming Resources

All of these are free:

• Blade Runner Case Generator. A good, simple mission generator for more investigation-heavy cyberpunk games.

• Cities Without Number Mission tables. CWN has a bunch of random tables for generating missions, and there’s a worksheet to help keep track of it all.

• Cy_Borg generators. I found one two different mission generators for Cy_Borg. They appear identical (using the tables from the books) but with different aesthetics.

If you find any resources on your own, share them here! Here are some I’ve found over the years:

• Itch Game Page Image Guide & Template by Star West - Helps you create itch.io project pages and properly-sized images for them.

• Cities Without Number Mission Worksheet by Glitched Tabletop (me) - Form-fillable worksheet for brainstorming mission’s using CWN’s random tables.

• Sci-fi character portraits project by Ashen Victor - 100 free, Creative Commons-NonCommercial portraits. Ashen has a second and third collection (paid) with additional portraits.

• OpenGameArt.org - massive repository of artwork under a variety of licenses.

• Letter TTRPG Pamphlet Template by me. Letter-sized pamphlet template for people in North America.

• A4 TTRPG Pamphlet Template by Hugh Lashbrooke - Free templates in Google Docs, Canva, and Microsoft Word.

• WTF Pamphlet RPG Template by Wizardthieffighter. Free pamphlet template for Affinity Publisher (the pay-once alternative to Adobe InDesign).

• Mothership Third Party Publishing Guide - If you want your submission to be Mothership-compatible, you need to fill this out and get approval. It usually takes a week, but can take longer.

• Bite the Hand Publishing Guide. It has it’s own publishing guide, separate from Mothership’s.

Finally playing my physical copy, and I have 2 rules questions:

1. When a worker is Exhausted/Decommissioned, are their attached items also Exhausted/Decommissioned?

2. The 15-card deck is face-down, correct?

I assume “yes” for both counts, but want to make sure.

Looks like it!

Yeah, you can upload the revised version to your project page (Root Access -> Edit Game -> Uploads), and it won’t require any intervention on my part at all.

If I delete the submission, will I be able to resubmit it even though the submission period is over?

If you’re just swapping the files (and keeping the project page), the project will stay part of the jam. So you won’t need to re-submit it to the jam.

Cool adventure! Love the layout and the synth/plant fusion!

It looks like the room descriptions got duplicated onto the second page. Is that intentional?

Love that you actually went through with posting the PowerPoint version.

Great question! I would normally suggest making a separate project page for the secondary derelict. But I’ll make an exception in this case: go ahead and add the secondary derelict to Mother, May I Keep It.

When you submit, I would leave a comment under the jam’s Submission tab specifying the secondary location’s file.

Also: the “snow bunnies” sound cool!

Check the link in the sequel jam: https://itch.io/jam/sci-fi-derelict-jam-2025

It is now “complete.” Thanks for the patience; I don’t know why I procrastinated as long as I did to complete it.

After an embarrassing wait, it has now come along.

Him, that’s odd. Third time’s the charm?

https://discord.gg/aPc7vCzaJZ

Another obvious resource:

• Orbiters Local 519 by Archon’s Court. A great derelict-crawler RPG with a very useful derelict generator in the back half. Use this if you need help coming up with ideas or a layout.

Hm, that’s odd. Try this one: https://discord.gg/yxzfhaPf34

If that doesn’t work, make sure your Discord email is verified.

Also: you probably won’t need a team for this jam. This is for tabletop games, not video games. It’s much easier to make things on your own. But you can still use the Discord to workshop ideas and get feedback.

Using this as a board to put some improvement ideas:

• Dedicated monster brainstorming instructions

• Advice for brainstorming villains

• Advice for coming up with the Unnatural (would require either developing A Theory Of Unnatural, or being heterodox and presenting many ideas on The Unnatural)

• “Handler” vs “Case Officer” and “Agent” vs “agent.”

• List some scenario-level mechanics (clocks, Heat, etc)

• Node traversal graphs?

• Advice on designing and illustrating maps (urban, wilderness, and buildings)

• Sourcing art ethically and responsibly

Good question!

Two different submissions with the same ship? That’s technically against rule 2 (“no pre-existing derelicts”), since one version would technically exist before the other. But a technicality isn’t the best reason, and luckily there is a better method.

Since it’s the same derelict (barring the optional challenges), your best option is submitting them together on the same project page. It makes it easier to manage, and easier to find/browse for interested readers.

Link to part 2: https://nevilkingstonbrown.itch.io/delta-green-war-on-dregs-act-ii

I’ve also added a (kinda ugly) pdf version for convenience.

It’s a markdown file (.md). It can be read by markdown readers like Obsidian.md or Markdown Live Preview, or “unrendered” (headings and links look like normal text but with special characters) by basically any text file reader like Notepad, Kate, or Vim.

• TTRPG Pamphlet Template by Hugh Lashbrooke - Free templates in Google Docs, Canva, and Microsoft Word.

• WTF Pamphlet RPG Template by Wizardthieffighter. Free pamphlet template for Affinity Publisher (the pay-once alternative to Adobe InDesign).

• Itch Game Page Image Guide & Template by Star West - Helps you create itch.io project pages and properly-sized images for them.

• Sci-fi character portraits project by Ashen Victor - 100 free, Creative Commons-NonCommercial portraits. Ashen has a second and third collection (paid) with additional portraits.

• NASA Images - The US’s National Aeronautics and Space Association has a bunch of images in the public domain. Double-check with their guidelines before using any of their images.

• OpenGameArt.org - massive repository of artwork under a variety of licenses.

• Mothership Third Party Publishing Guide - If you want your submission to be Mothership-compatible, you need to fill this out and get approval. It usually takes a week, but can take longer.

Feel free to drop any resources you found useful for making your derelict submission.

Yeah, that should be fine.

Finally getting around to providing feedback:

Legibility

Clearly written, illustrated, and laid-out. I’d put the Player Information column on the left, but that’s just preference.

One potential concern is that the colored text may pose a challenge for GMs with colorblindness. I suggest pairing the color-coding with bold (for locations), italics (for NPCs), and underline or capitalization (for infested items).

Modularity

Plenty of good hooks that lead to an evergreen adventure location that can I can see fitting in almost any space sandbox.

Theme Usage

Turning A Color Out Of Space into a dungeon crawl, and seems to do a good job of adapting the chromatic horror of the story into something interactive.

Runnability

It seems all the necessary fictional and gameplay elements are present. Despite being system-agnostic, you even made sure to include simple yet useful mechanics for the threat.

X-Factor

This is my platonic idea of a Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam submission. You knocked it out of the park with a adaptation to a story I enjoy.

Someone asked about a rubric to help frame feedback/critique of others’ scenarios, so I’m sharing mine. I don’t use points, but I’ve attached a points system if anyone wants to use them.

Legibility

Is the scenario written and organized in a manner conducive to understanding it?

1 - The scenario needs an editor, badly. The scenario feels confusing and tough to read.

3 - A run-on here, a weird explanation here. The scenario isn’t beautiful, but it’s a serviceable read. I’ll need to take my own notes if I want to run it, though.

5 - The scenario reads as clear, well laid out, and flows from one section to the next in logical fashion. I don’t need to take notes to run it. I could’ve even run it while reading it for the first time.

Modularity

Is the scenario designed to be dropped into an existing or future campaign (fitting its genre)?

1 - The scenario is incredibly narrow in utility (such as ending in a guaranteed TPK), has too few or too-uninteresting hooks, and I would likely not use it as a module in my campaign.

3 - The scenario is sufficiently-modular, with sufficient hooks for the players into this scenario (and potentially into future scenarios). I can drop this into an appropriate campaign, but I’ll need to add/remove segments to make it fit.

5 - This slides into a campaign effortlessly. There are many hooks that will certainly catch the attention of players I don’t think I’ll need to modify it at all.

Theme Usage

How did the entry use the themes? 1 - A theme was clearly shoehorned in to fit the requirement.

3 - The theme(s) is sufficiently integral, but not especially creative.

5 - A novel interpretation of a theme that elevates the theme to new highs.

Runnability

Does this scenario include everything that is needed to run it? 1 - No. Essential fictional (locations, NPCs, events) and gameplay elements (encounter details, maps for a map-heavy game, stats if using a stat-heavy game) are completely missing, the scenario lacks conflict or interesting choices, or the scenario is too frequently distracted with non sequiturs.

3 - Mostly. The essentials are here, but a few things are either missing or frivolous. I’ll need to either expand or “fix” this scenario before it hits my table..

5 - Yes, easily. This has everything I’d ever need or want to run this scenario: the locations and events are well-arranged, each NPC is fleshed out but not over-detailed, the conflicts have only interesting resolutions/outcomes, and sidebars are focused yet useful.

X-Factor (aka is this my thing)

Does this laser-target my special interests, or do something cool that doesn’t fit the other criteria? That’s accounted for here.

1 - This scenario is absolutely not for me. No part of this will hit my table.

3 - The scenario is fine. I may run a version of this or steal parts of it for my game, but I don’t have a strong desire to.

5 - This scenario was written for me specifically. I need to run it ASAP.

25 points possible.

Likely not. You’ll need permission from Dennis (or whichever artist illustrated other images you want to use). You could try messaging him on Bluesky, but I don’t know if he’ll say yes.

Love the campaign stitch! You may want to swap the Fandom links (fairfieldproject.fandom.com/wiki/[scenario-name]) for Wikidot links (fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/[scenario-name]), since the Fandom wiki is being depreciated.

Good question. Unfortunately, handouts are counted towards the word limit.

If you can’t squeeze them in so your submission’s close to the 30k word limit, you’ll need to exclude them from your submission.

Once the jam’s over, you can add the case files back as an optional handout.

copies of some old DG case files

A trick to save the wordcount may be to have the files incomplete/redacted, but still functional. That way you’re only spending your budget on the words that have high priority.

but it would blow my word count out

How much would it blow your word count?

Giving this a quick skim, and I am very impressed! Hopefully I can sink my teeth into it this upcoming weekend.

At this point, it looks like you’re ready to hit “submit” on the project. You’ll still be able to make changes after you upload it, if need be.

Email sent. If you don’t want your email address public like this now, you can edit your comment and redact your address.

I unfortunately haven’t heard back yet. I’ll send additional pings and see if I can get more info.

To make things convenient: could you give me your email? That way, I can CC you in any email requests I send out?

I haven’t heard much back yet. But someone did point me to what appears to be Sarah Szell’s website. You can try contacting here there and asking permission to copy and remix SECRET SANTA.