In the not too distant future… The megasprawl of Xanthe is all you’ve ever known. A resident of the first city of Mars, you’ve had no reason to travel; the State and your work commitments have kept you more than busy.

On some nights you sit on the roof of your apartment building, stare at the vast emptiness of space and long to be among the stars, somewhere, Beyond Mars.

Download Beyond Mars for free at my itch.io page.

Beyond Mars is a medium-crunch Tabletop RPG inspired by Blades in the Dark, The Sprawl and Mouse Guard. Created as part of the CODECO Design competition, I created this game alongside fellow contestants Cole Griner and Jarrod Ingram.

Designed for a GM and 3-4 players, take on the roles of ordinary citizens of the first city on Mars, Xanthe. Your local communities are rich and vibrant but there’s something buried within you all that yearns to leave for somewhere else.

Do jobs for the local community, get biomods, piss off corporations and earn Credits. But as much as you want to leave, is it so easy to leave your community behind?

Below is a playtest stream hosted partway through development to stress-test the rules. As a result, some aspects of the game are different to the version offered above.

In this session we have Paolo as George, Tom as Wally and Amy as Audrex.