When: Thursday February 3, 2011
Who: Marc (The Governor) and Caroline (The Savior)
What: Mars Colony
State of the Colony at the end of the game: Poor is an understatement.

Mother Kelly Marie Perkins was called in to save the colony from corruption, radiation, and the threat of 'others' (those pesky non-believers). What she brought was further corruption, a ruthless theocracy, and the death of half the colony from radiation poisoning.

Kelly ruined both the colony and herself as she succumbed to a terrible addiction to the Drops of Helios ('Healies' for short), driving herself into madness even as she distributed them to cure the peoples' radiation poisoning.

Great game, very dark, very tragic.

I loved the tragic romance between Kelly and Father Abe. It was beautiful hypocrisy as Kelly tried to rid the colony of corruption and infidelity while pursuing her own passions. I kept wanting to have her collapse in his arms and say "Forgive me Father for I have sinned," but I couldn't get myself to do it :P I liked that when he died of drug poisoning Kelly believed he continued to follow her around as an angel, now liberated from his earthly body. We had a great scene where Father Abe offered Kelly the drug and to 'share his vision.' Kelly walks away only to have the situation reversed years later. Beautiful.

Thank you everyone for being patient as we learned the mechanics! I really appreciate it!!

So was it playable cold, straight from the text, or did I totally mislead you guys? Granted it's always going to be N degrees harder to do two games in parallel, particularly with only one book.

(I didn't realize ahead of time you guys didn't have a book. If you want, Eric can order one or you can get it through the Mars Colony website.)

I felt like it was somewhat cold-playable, but I had the benefit of having played it before and sort of knowing what to expect. The rules are super straight-forward--getting the most out of your game is a little tricky though. Shou and Cy had a harder time getting into a good rhythm with it, I think, than Marc and I did simply because I'd played once before.

(I would totally like to get my hands on a copy. Does Eric order things for customers? Because that would be sa-weet!)

Gamma Ray has 3-4 copies in stock right now.

Oh I'm so picking one up tomorrow!

Mars Colony in stock? Score. Love that game.

Gamma Ray gets stock from Indie Press Revolution, so anything they carry Eric should be able to order for you. If IPR doesn't carry something, the indie rpgs un-store is a good place to look, or hunt down the publisher's website.

EDIT: for example, Shock is not on IPR, which is why Gamma Ray doesn't have it