Both cool ideas! Storage corresponds well with the Deck 6: Supply, and I can see Research (depending on the type) could fit in the Crew (for medical/biological research), Sensors, or Engineering departments.

Plant your flag! Share the department you want to work on, and the ideas you have for that department!

The seven departments are:

1. Command
2. Sensors
3. Weapons
4. Flight Deck (for starfighters, drones, and interface craft)
5. Crew (including medical)
6. Supply
7. Engineering

We only got two reviews, and while both were useful (And this was my first time:)) it was a bit disheartening to come in last. Especially as (And I know everyone works differently and I respect that) I worked my ass off to review as many other entries as possible.

Yeah, it’s absolutely disheartening to get comparatively little feedback on something you work hard on (and absolutely deserves more attention). Part of that is because the rating queue seems completely random, and randomly under-assigned your mission (and a few others).

One change I want to implement next time is to personally assign everyone missions to rate. That way, we can guarantee everyone gets equal attention (and we aren’t reliant on itch,io’s dicerolls). Do you think mandating a balanced spread of people rating missions would address this issue?

Post your feedback about the jam itself here. Any feedback you want to share will be useful, and I’m especially interested to see answers to the following:

1. Fun. Was this jam theme actually fun to try to write for?

2. Resources. Were the list of resources (list of astronaut RPGs, astronaut inspirations, and other community resources) actually useful? What was missing, or wish was included?

3. Time & Support. Do you feel like you had adequate time and support to make your astronaut mission? How could I have better helped you in making your mission?

4. Judging. Were the 4 criteria (legibility, design, aesthetics, and astronaut theme/applicability) useful criteria for judging others’ missions and interpreting the feedback you received?

5. The future. What should I change about the jam when I run the next one?

My feedback is significantly delayed, but hopefully still useful.

Legibility: very clear overall. There’s some bleed-over of text into another column, but that’s a minor blemish. The only potential challenge I predict to comprehension/usability is the lack of aids for travel time and fuel. A map with each location and its travel time/fuel cost (or a simple bullet-point directory listing those, to stay ASCII-only) would help.

Design: the adventure is a fun dilemma between saving as many lives as possible while minimizing risk and managing time and propellant. I only found two blemishes:

1. a selfish solo player, uninterested in saving anyone else, will quickly resolve the situation by going to Prospect and refusing to leave when Mercury Belle arrives. I don’t think this is intended, and I recommend explicitly forcing the player out when the Mercury Belle comes ringing.

2. the various NPCs feel under-developed for player manipulation/interaction/negotiation. A casualty of the length constraints, and something a passable referee can overcome. I would give Marr one more explicit motivation/characteristic the player can use as leverage when negotiating with Marr, and give Li Wen two or three more to give the player leverage to “force his hand.”

Aesthetics: plain in all the best ways. Easy to print, easy to read, and vaguely-modern.

Applicability. Very applicable for an astronaut game. Although in LEO, this can also work in further-future astronaut games (say, around Mars) with some tweaks to the timeline.

Overall, a fun and excellent example of an astronaut mission. I believe most of my critiques were preemptively incorporated into your version 2.0, so anyone should give that a look too: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/581513/storm-shelter-2-0

Regarding peer-reviewing in your last point: do we think assigning each author two campaigns would be a reasonable number? That way each campaign gets multiple perspectives for feedback, but reviewers aren’t overwhelmed reading every campaign with a fine comb.

Another follow-up:

jargons and makes references to things I don’t personally really understand but can infer from context. I assume the Orbital Cold War rulebook has extensive lore information on all of this?

Are there specific references and pieces of jargon that you needed to infer?

Post your feedback and suggestions for next year’s jam. Specifically, I want to know:

1. Time: Do you feel like you had enough (or too much) time to finish your campaign?

2. Assistance. Do you feel the help and resources provided (the advice on the jam page, the monthly check-in emails, the monthly voicecalls) helped you with your work?

3. Challenges. What did you struggle with during the writing process?

4. Word Count. Was the word limit an interesting/useful constraint, or just an unhelpful obstruction?

5. Next Year. If I hold this again next year, what changes do you want me to make?

Use boxes. I am not sure where, but some information can be inside boxes to better distinguish it from other forms of information

I did plan to use a table detailing each satellite’s systems & issues, but couldn’t make it fit in-the-moment. I’ve implemented that idea, and you can see it attached at the bottom.

what’s clearly missing is that I need the Orbital Cold War rulebook to understand if your use of dots, circles and squares for information hierarchy is unique to you or is the recommended norm set by that game?

It doesn’t stem from OCW. I initially picked it up from the Mothership campaign Gradient Descent, and a similar pattern is frequent enough in OSR/NSR games. The hierarchy usually goes:

• Obvious detail: Detected just by the players existing in the same space, with a (skill requirement) determining if players recognize what they’re looking at.
  • Secondary details: Either some related action the player can perform, or additional details that require further investigation (like a higher skill check).
    • Tertiary details: Action that only be performed by knowing the related Secondary detail.

The symbols (black circle, white circle, black square) are just the defaults and only meant to communicate the level of detail.

These nested bulletpoints have become my natural style, but this information hierarchy can be confusing for some people. Below is my attempt at cleaning it up (along with implementing your box suggestion).

Let me know if you think this is a significant improvement on both counts.

Edit: ignore the bullet point in the last row, I forgot to delete that.

One thing I’d immediately think about as a player that isn’t represented here is the idea of salvaging the other satellite in some manner, a little guidance there might be good as well (especially when the interlopers arrive!).

My intention was that players could pick parts from the opposing satellite, so I’ll definitely expand on that in the next version.

👍 Debtor’s Frontier has been removed from this jam.

Absolutely. Particularly Orbital Decay and Habs & Garden.

• Technical Sci-Fi. A blog series with advice on making astronaut missions.
• NASA Image and Video Library. Browsable database of free-to-use images from NASA.
• Itch Game Page Image Guide & Template by Star West - Helps you create itch.io project pages and properly-sized images for them.
• 100 Sci-Fi RPG Faces by GatlingArt. 100 free, Creative Commons 4.0 portraits (can be used commercially).
• 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.
• Letter TTRPG Pamphlet Template by me - Free template in Google Docs for letter-sized pamphlets. 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.

Post any resources you think will be helpful for others here.

Did you ever post files for the Apocalypse Frame miniatures publicly? I’m running AF at a con this month, and I’d love to use the ones you made!

Real-Life

• Apollo Applications Program
• Skylab 4 Strike
• List of cancelled space missions
• List of proposed missions to the outer planets
• Original Artemis 2 asteroid mission plan (before it became a moon flyby)

Movies/Shows

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• 2010: The Year We Make Contact
• Ad Astra
• Apollo 13
• Apollo 18
• Europa Report
• parts of The Expanse
• First Man
• For All Mankind (the documentary and the alt-history TV show)
• Interstellar
• The Martian (2015)
• Moon (2009)
• Planetes
• Project Hail Mary (2026)
• The Right Stuff

Games

• Delta-V: Rings of Saturn
• Hardspace: Shipbreaker
• Heavenly Bodies
• Kerbal Space Program
• Moonbase Alpha (John Madden John Madden John Madden)
• Ostranauts
• Outer Wilds (not the Obsidian RPG)
• Tharsis
• Voyager 19

Books

• parts of 2001 Nights
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• 2010: Odyssey Two
• Calculating Stars/Lady Astronaut series
• Delta-V by Daniel Suarez
• parts of The Expanse series
• The Grand Tour series
• Mars Trilogy
• The Martian
• Planetes
• Project Hail Mary
• parts of Pushing Ice
• parts of Rendezvous With Rama

Post movies, shows, games, historical facts, and whatever else you find inspiring for astronaut missions.

Definitely Astronat RPGs/Settings

• Apollo 47
• Holdfast Station
• Jovian Despair
• NULL_SPACE
• Orbital 2100 (a setting for Traveller/Cepheus Engine)
• Orbital Cold War (a setting for Cepheus Engine)
• Outpost Mars (a setting for Cepheus Engine)
• Pioneer (upcoming astronaut RPG by the people making Traveller)
• Sixty Years in Space
• Void Above

Can be used for Astronaut Missions

• cramOS. Robotic RPG, which could fit playing as a group of rovers (like the Curiosity/Perseverance Mars rovers) or robotic astronauts (like NASA’s Robonaut)
• Eclipse Phase, specifically a Reclaimers salvage/orbital debris cleanup campaign.
• GURPS Transhuman Space. The rest of the solar system is ripe for astronaut missions.
• HARDCASE. Near-future gig economy on a space station. Salvage jobs (like the Maria Seraph) help this game somewhat appropriate for astronaut missions.
• Jovian Chronicles. A hard sci-fi mech game in our own solar system. A campaign about Explorers, Spacers, and Technicians (rather than the mechs) using a Gritty or Adventurous Reality-Distortion level fits astronaut perfectly.
• Mothership. A game about the stress and horror of working in outer-space. A mission for Teamsters and Scientists would work perfectly as an astronaut mission - just hold the spooky crab monster on the side.
• Mutant Year Zero. Specifically via the Ad Astra expansion/campaign setting, which is all about survival and discovery in our mutated solar system.
• Orbiters Local 519. A game of salvaging space derelicts. Can work well for a darker, dangerous reimagining of Planetes-style space garbage collection.
• Shadows Over Sol. Mostly space-horror, but frequently goes all-in on astronaut missions.

Let’s make a list of tabletop RPG rules and settings useful for running/making astronaut missions.

Sammy’s Optional Theme Ideas

1. Cancelled Projects (Apollo Venus Flyby, Artemis II Asteroid Redirect, LM X-33/VentureStar, Russian Znamya space mirror, etc)

2. Interstellar interloper (rogue planets, objects like ʻOumuamua, etc)

3. Last-minute budget cuts

SUGGESTIONS CLOSED. Help us pick our optional themes here: https://forms.gle/4FJ3roLd7pb3DV4Y6

Post up to three (3) optional theme ideas here. You can reply to each other’s ideas and modify your own up until the deadline.

Themes are due by Sunday, August 2nd at 11:59pm EDT (UTC-4).

If you need inspiration/examples of themes, check out themes from prior years: 2026 Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam, the Cyberpunk Jam’s optional themes, the Derelict Jam’s optional themes, 2025, 2024, 2023, or 2022.

Good question. I think we can relax the “two or more separate scenarios” requirement and allow what you’re asking, as long as Home Scenes can still happen somewhere in the middle of your mini-campaign. Without some space for Home Scenes, mini-campaigns quickly blur the lines with standalone “big” scenarios.

If you want want no/loosely-defined scenarios for your mini-campaign, I would suggest adding explicit guidance for pacing Home Scenes.

Love the cover!

We had the quarter-way voicecall yesterday. Everyone in the VC’s making exciting progress, and we were able to help each other with some roadblocks:

• My CORAL NOMAD campaign (attempt #3) is making fine progress, with the player chapter complete, the skeleton for the GM introduction present, modifications to the random mission generator made (still need some more random tables), and the first scenario (of four) outlined. The main obstacle I had with the first scenario was whether I want the NOMADS to rescue a single weird spaceplane from the ocean, or if I want to have two near-identical spaceplances with near-identical crew to rescue. The voicechat convinced me to do the latter, since it has a more blatant “weird” factor to hook players. The plan is to finish that draft, hand it off to a newbie GM, and use my mission generator to create the second mission by mid-July.

• Evelyn B is expanding her FISHER KING WWII adventure into a three-part campaign, breaking the existing bits into two halves and adding a third part at the end. The current struggle is choosing what to trim (although she’s already cut a good chunk of excess words) to make room for part 3, since the OG FISHER KING already borders the 30,000 word cap. Very excited to see what she cooks up for Part 3.

• Dr Perky is cooking up a revenge-fueled conspiracy inspired by the ending of The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He’s still trying to determine the main objective and shape for this campaign, but he has an exciting hook and subject. He’s targeting having part 1 worked on by mid-July.

• MrDaBeef is working on a Shub-Niggurath mini-campaign built around Tormsen’s shotgun scenario Mother’s Brew. He wanted to incorporate some ideas from the players’ relationship with Baast in God’s Teeth. He’s settling on giving each player a “Siren” that visits their dreams during Home Scenes, offering to either come closer to Shub (in exchange for cool magical powers) or resisting Shub’s call (costing SAN). We brainstormed some ideas of what those could be, and he seems excited to toy with them. His current plan is to have the modifications to Mother’s Brew complete, and start work on the other four parts by the mid-June check-in.

• Nik is planning on making a three-part Phenomen-X campaign set in the UK against the Shan. We spent some time brainstorming each of the three parts, and coming up with justifications to rope the players in and keep them hooked, despite the danger and the lack of normal DG obligation. The current idea is for players to make PX crewmembers with motivations the mini-campaign will explicitly hook into, offering players relevant latitude in making characters while not accidentally breaking the campaign. Nik’s planning to get part 1 written up by mid-July.

Wanna share the progress you’ve made, or get help on a part you’re stuck on? Share it here!

DM_Massimiliano’s suggestions:

• Ad Astra: first Mars landing, NASA, astrology, etc. - a la ‘BLACKSAT’ or ‘Operation Minoan Augur’ or ‘The Martian’ w/Sneeple
• One location (like a one-room play): a house, or a cave complex, etc.

Brokenimage321’s suggestions:

• A pre-WW1 historical setting (Gaslight London, Imperial China, Wild-West USA)
• A crossover with an existing supernatural investigation team from another franchise. How would the stars of The X-Files, Supernatural, Rivers of London, Gravity Falls, or Scooby-Doo fare in the world of Delta Green–or vice-versa?

“(Anti)memetic Threat” may be a good way to phrase the last one.

My ideas:

• Wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey

• P4-Era Campaign (1917-1945)

• Uses a Rehabilitated Great Old One

List up to three theme ideas here.

Since themes are optional, you should choose specific and evocative themes.

Closes Thursday, May 21st at 11:59pm EDT (UTC-4).

Vote for themes here: https://forms.gle/kS96GxhFC69tDDaD8

Feel free to post any useful resources you find here!