Antares: Trilogy
Antares, Antares: Breach, & Antares: Planetfall
Antares Trilogy
In the 14th solar month of the year 2235, the merchant ship Antares encountered an unknown alien entity. During their return trip home, the crew diverted from their heading to investigate an archaeological find on a distant moon outside the Alpha Centauri cluster. The site was found to contain artifacts from an ancient race that had long vanished from that system. Among the ruins the crew uncovered an alien chrysalis. Believing it to be one of the artifacts it was unknowingly taken on board. Using the collected audio and video surveillance data from on board the ship the events that followed have been pieced together. What follows is the record of the events that occurred on the Antares while the crew tried desperately to abandon ship.
This is just the beginning of the story. Follow the ship Antares through three distinct game settings. Each setting with its own unique cast of crew and marines to choose from. The three games have a hig variety of play due to modular locations, two options for each character, and a random encounter deck for each experience.
SPECS
Antares
Experience the tense and horror driven first chapter in Antares. The seven crew members of the Antares must race to shut down the ships functions and collect the needed supplies to leave aboard the escape craft. Each turn the crew could encounter the alien life-form accidentally brought aboard. Each encounter could turn deadly.
Conceived September 2018
Solo/Cooperative play
1-7 Players
Space/Survival Genre
74 square cards, 9 Meeples, Rulebook, Storage bag
Self Published
Antares: Breach
Drifting inside Saturn’s orbit, the Antares is docked with the Dry Dock Facility Hermes. Unknown to the Hermes’ crew, the alien life-form has been breeding, unchecked, and the threat has grown. The facility must be locked down, and the Antares released into space.
Conceived November 2019
Solo/Cooperative play
1-8 Players
Space/Survival Genre
93 square cards, 12 Meeples, 3 Acrylic Cubes, Rulebook, Storage bag
Self Published
Antares: Planetfall
The ship was released from the Hermes months before, and has intercepted Earth’s orbit, crashing in a populated area. The crash has caused destruction and casualties, but survivors have been heard from. Fireteams are sent in to secure the site. Unknown to the Marines sent to the task, the life-form has survived, and infiltrated the surrounding structures, seeding them with eggs to grow more of its kind.
Conceived January 2019
Solo/Cooperative play
1-3 Players
Space/Survival Genre
111 square cards, 3 Tokens w/ Stickers, Rulebook, Storage bag
Self Published
GENESIS
When I was around 14 years old, I saw a scene from the movie Alien. My father had turned on the television and the scene in the hold, where Parker and Lambert were collecting oxygen canisters was playing out on the screen. It took about 30 seconds for that movies to terrify me, and burn itself into my memory that the alien still haunts my dreams. I left the room and carried that feeling of dread with me. I did finally see the entire film, and every other Alien movie that has been made. My fear became and obsession. I have attempted to turn that obsession into an experience. Antares is the realized fear, obsession, and respect for the power of that franchise, and its overarching story.
There is no Heroine, as their was in the original Alien trilogy. The focus is shifted to the ship, and the alien life-form, and how their story unfolds together. The ship draws a line through the three gaming experiences. There are crew, and marines, who face off against the terror in the dark, but this tale goes beyond the individual. Through each play through, and each of the three games, a Hero or Heroine may arise. Through luck or fate, crew may escape. There is really no win condition to the games. True, getting some characters through the experience alive can feel like a success. I hope though, that the experience of playing the games, of seeing the story play out before you, is the win. Each play assumes the events have already happened. That you are seeing a replay of collected data and footage which tells the tale. Begging the question of what control do you really have over the events. Once the ship is laid out, and the scan deck is shuffled, what can you really do to save any of these characters? Are you sending them to their doom, or is everything completely out of your hands?
I’m not sure which is more terrifying….
GAME PLAY
Basic set up and game play are similar through the three titles. The ship or crash site is constructed from a number of cards, with some limitations. You choose the cast of characters for the coming drama. They exists somewhere on the ship, or in the staging areas. Their prequel has already played out. Place or assign their resources, shuffle the scan decks, and watch the events unfold.
The cast of characters can move about the ship or crash site, pick up supplies and weapons, complete objectives to secure their ship or facility, destroy egg caches, recon structures, and rescue survivors. They can use weapons to fend of the aliens, or outright destroy them. Eventually the supplies are collected, or run thin, the ammo gets scarce, and the tide turns.
I hope that in playing these games you can suspend your reality for a time. Live in the moment of terror of these imagined people, far from home, facing the unknown, and feel that feeling I felt as I saw that 30 seconds of film that altered my life for better, for worse, and forever.