WE HAVE WATCHED HUMANS FOR LONG ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT THEY LEARN MUCH MORE QUICKLY BY OBSERVING OTHER HUMANS RATHER THAN DOING A PRIMITIVE HUMAN THING CALLED 'READING'. WHY DO YOU NOT JUST UPLOAD INFORMATION DIRECTLY INTO YOUR BRAIN?
HERE IS A VIDEO OF A FANTASTIC HUMAN NAMED MARK FROM BOARD GAME COFFEE THAT WILL HELP GET YOU UP TO SPEED ON HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME. THIS VIDEO ISN'T A FULL RULE VIDEO (ONE IS COMING SOON), AND IT IS SPECIFIC TO THE CARD GAME, SO THERE WILL BE A FEW DIFFERENCES WHEN YOU ARE PLAYING ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE, BUT IT WILL AT LEAST GIVE YOU THE GIST OF THE GAME.
HAPPY LEARNING, HUMANS!
A QUICK TRANSMISSION
QUICK START GUIDE
WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?
YOU’RE AN ALIEN. YOU’VE SEARCHED FAR AND WIDE FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE, BUT INSTEAD, YOU’VE FOUND EARTH. YOU ABDUCT TWO HUMANS TO ACT AS TRANSLATORS AS YOU TRY TO WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND THE PECULIAR HUMAN BEHAVIORS AND CONCEPTS THAT YOU HAVE OBSERVED.
THE GAME IS SPLIT UP INTO TWO TYPES OF CARDS.
EARTH CARDS: EACH FEATURING ONE OF THESE PECULIAR BEHAVIORS OR CONCEPTS.
ALIEN CARDS: POPULATED WITH 20 RANDOM LETTERS THAT WILL MAKE YOU TALK AND THINK LIKE AN ALIEN.
THIS GAME IS SPLIT INTO TWO ROLES - ALIENS, WHO USE THEIR ALIEN (LETTER) CARDS TO DESCRIBE EARTH (OBSERVATION) CARDS, AND HUMANS, WHO COMPETE TO GUESS WHAT THE ALIENS ARE DESCRIBING.
AS AN ALIEN, YOUR GOAL IS TO DESCRIBE THE EARTH CARD CONCEPT BY ONLY SAYING WORDS THAT START WITH THE LETTERS PROVIDED ON YOUR OWN ALIEN CARD, IN THE ORDER THEY APPEAR ON THE CARD.
TAKE THE ABOVE CARDS AS AN EXAMPLE. AS AN ALIEN, YOU COULD SAY:
"OCEAN COMING QUICKLY! YOU SHOULD RELISH THESE YEARS. NO BEARS WORLD WIDE”
AS A HUMAN, YOUR GOAL IS TO BE THE FIRST HUMAN TO CORRECTLY GUESS WHAT ON EARTH THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.
IN THE ABOVE EXAMPLE, THE CORRECT GUESS WOULD BE “CLIMATE CHANGE”. EACH CORRECT GUESS EARNS YOU 1 POINT, WHICH YOU TALLY USING YOUR POINTS TRACKER.
TO START YOUR GAME, NOMINATE TWO PLAYERS SITTING NEXT TO EACH OTHER TO BE THE FIRST TWO HUMAN ABDUCTEES. ALL OTHER PLAYERS WILL BE ALIENS AND WILL NEED TO SCAN THE 'QR SHARE' CODE TO GENERATE THEIR OWN ALIEN CARDS. AN ALIEN WILL ALSO GENERATE ONE EARTH CARD PER TURN (IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH ALIEN). SHOW THE REST OF THE ALIENS THIS CARD, AND GET READY TO PLAY!
THE TWO HUMANS WILL BE THE FIRST TO COMPETE AGAINST EACH OTHER TO GUESS THE ALIEN’S EARTH CARD. THERE IS NO LIMIT TO HOW MANY GUESSES EACH HUMAN HAS, AND THE TURN ENDS WHEN A HUMAN CORRECTLY GUESSES THE WORD ON THE EARTH CARD OR THE ALIENS AGREE THAT A GUESS IS ‘CLOSE ENOUGH’.
EACH PAIR OF HUMANS WILL COMPETE FOR TWO TURNS BEFORE PLAY MOVES ONE PLAYER TO THE LEFT. EACH HUMAN WILL COMPETE FOR FOUR TURNS IN TOTAL AS A HUMAN (TWO VERSUS THE PLAYER TO THEIR LEFT AND TWO VERSUS THE PLAYER TO THEIR RIGHT), WITH THE REST OF THEIR TURNS PLAYED AS AN ALIEN.
ONE PLAYER IN THE FIRST PAIR OF HUMANS WILL HAVE THEIR FOUR GUESSING TURNS SPLIT - TWO AT THE START OF THE ROUND AND TWO AT THE END. ONCE THEY COMPLETE THEIR FINAL TWO TURNS AS A HUMAN, THE ROUND IS OVER AND THE PLAYER WITH THE MOST POINTS WINS!
PLAY AS MANY ROUNDS AS YOUR SINGULAR HUMAN HEART DESIRES!
HOW ON EARTH DO I PLAY?
THE GAME STARTS WITH TWO HUMANS - LET’S CALL THEM DUTCH AND RIPLEY - AND ALL REMAINING PLAYERS BECOME ALIENS.
DUTCH AND RIPLEY WILL COMPETE FOR TWO TURNS, GUESSING A DIFFERENT EARTH CARD EACH TURN.
THE PLAY ROTATES ONCE THE FIRST TWO TURNS ARE FINISHED, WITH DUTCH BECOMING AN ALIEN AND JAY BECOMING A HUMAN TO COMPETE AGAINST RIPLEY FOR THE NEXT TWO TURNS. AT THE END OF THESE, RIPLEY'S FOUR TURNS AS A HUMAN WILL BE COMPLETE.
PLAY ROTATES LIKE THIS UNTIL IT GETS BACK TO DUTCH (WHO HAS ONLY HAD TWO TURNS AS A HUMAN). DUTCH NOW COMPETES AGAINST GREG FOR HIS FINAL TWO TURNS. ONCE THIS IS COMPLETE, THE ROUND IS OVER, AND THE PLAYER WITH THE MOST POINTS WINS!
TURNS AND ROUNDS (VISUALISED)
THE GAME GOES TO A TIEBREAKER IF TWO OR MORE PLAYERS ARE TIED AT THE END OF THE ROUND.
ALL TIED PLAYERS BECOME HUMANS, AND THE REMAINING PLAYERS BECOME ALIENS. THE ALIENS WILL GENERATE A NEW EARTH CARD, AND THE TIEBREAKER BEGINS! AFTER EACH POINT, A NEW EARTH CARD IS GENERATED, AND THE TIEBREAKER CONTINUES UNTIL ONE HUMAN IS 2 POINTS AHEAD OF ALL OTHER HUMANS!
TIEBREAKERS
ONCE YOU HAVE HAD FOUR FULL TURNS AS A HUMAN, YOU GET TO GIVE OUT A POINT TO THE ALIEN YOU CONSIDERED TO BE THE ‘MOST VALUABLE ALIEN’ DURING YOUR STINT AS A HUMAN.
TO AWARD YOUR MVA POINT, SIMPLY CHOOSE POINT TO AN ALIEN. THEY CAN THEN ADD ONE POINT TO THEIR POINTS TRACKER.
NOTE: THERE’S NO REAL FORMULA FOR CHOOSING YOUR MVA - JUST GO WITH YOUR GUT!
MOST VALUABLE ALIEN
HOW TO BE THE BEST ALIEN YOU CAN BE
U N D E R S C O R E S
EACH ALIEN CARD INCLUDES A NUMBER OF UNDERSCORES. THESE CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF ANY HUMAN LETTER OF YOUR CHOOSING.
IF YOU EVER GET STUCK ON A LETTER, YOU CAN SKIP TO THE LETTER AFTER THE NEXT UNDERSCORE. IF THERE ARE NO MORE UNDERSCORES ON YOUR CURRENT CARD, YOU ARE STILL STUCK, OR YOU’VE USED ALL YOUR LETTERS, SIMPLY GENERATE A NEW ALIEN CARD AND KEEP PLAYING.
K E Y W O R D S
AS AN ALIEN, YOU CAN ALWAYS SAY ESSENTIAL HUMAN WORDS LIKE ‘THE’, ‘AND’, ‘AS’ ETC., BUT YOU SHOULDN’T SAY ANY OF THE KEYWORDS ON THE EARTH CARD. IF YOU OR ANOTHER ALIEN DOES LET SLIP A KEYWORD, DON’T DRAW ATTENTION TO IT AND JUST KEEP GOING AS IF IT NEVER HAPPENED. IN A PERFECT WORLD, ALIENS WOULD NEVER SAY A KEYWORD, BUT WE UNDERSTAND THAT ACCIDENTS HAPPEN AND THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
E T I Q U E T T E
ALL ALIENS ARE COOPERATING, SO AS LONG AS YOU AREN’T INTERRUPTING A FELLOW ALIEN, YOU SHOULD FEEL FREE TO SPEAK AS SOON AS A CLUE COMES TO MIND. A CLUE COULD BE ONE OR TWO RELEVANT WORDS, BUT WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND AIMING FOR SENTENCES - THESE ARE SOMETIMES NONSENSICAL AND ARE ALWAYS HILARIOUS.
THIS GAME IS RECOMMENDED FOR MATURE ALIENS, BUT THERE ARE SOME EARTHLY CONCEPTS THAT MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR ALL ALIENS, EVEN IF THEY ARE MATURE-AGED. IF YOU ARE PLAYING WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS DIFFERENT SENSIBILITIES FROM SOME OF THE RAUNCHIER HUMANS DOWN THERE, SIMPLY SWITCH OFF THE NSFA TOGGLE BELOW THE EARTH CARD.