The Museum of Extraterrestrial Rarities
A downloadable game
👽 Become a Zebra Finch Zinester ($3/month) member or higher on our Patreon before May 10th to get a key for this game zine! 👽
Physical Copies Available!
About the Game
The year is 21xx
Extraterrestrial beings of multiple races have long since discovered our planet. Earth serves them one singular purpose: it's a fairly decent rest stop on the way to the planets they actually want to visit. Our food is pretty okay and our music is excellent, according to one particularly kind being. And fuel is WAY cheaper here!
In exchange for our hospitality, extraterrestrials often leave artifacts behind. These rare, priceless objects are stored within the Museum of Extraterrestrial Rarities. And, no: contrary to what others may say, the extraterrestrials are NOT just leaving their garbage behind!
Sadly, our translation device is awful, so we have to do LOTS of guesswork about what each artifact is. That's where you come in! Think you're up to the challenge?
This game was created for the Zine Idea Generator 2.0 Jam and used the prompt "Make a Table-Top RPG zine that turns song titles into alien artifacts"
How to Play
Start up a playlist, album, or whatever, hit shuffle, then pause it. For each artifact page, hit skip on your playlist and use that song title to generate an artifact. The title itself is all that matters, and it's the result of our AWFUL translation device, so you'll need to come up with a way better name for the artifact. Plus, since you're a curator, you'll need to fill out some other info too like where it came from and what it does. Don't forget to draw it as well, but don't worry, no one expects a curator to have great art skills...
Playing multiplayer? Instead of hitting skip for each artifact, fill out the back page by hitting skip and writing down the song title ten times. You'll use one of these (of your choice) for each artifact, but be careful: once everyone is done filling in their zine, you'll pass them around and around, marking your guesses for which song title was used on each page. Whoever gets the most correct wins!
How Do I Fold It Tho?
This video is a great example of how to fold an 8-page zine! It's the video I use personally :D
More Games
You can check out all of our journaling and writing prompt games here, and some of our other zine games are below:
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $2 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Printed Zine
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copies
Want full access to the digital files but can't afford it? That's okay, grab a copy!
These community copies were provided by our Enlightened Egret patrons! A huge thanks to Dwight McDowell, Sarah Kiemel, Dora Duvall, Rochelle B, Zedd 4 Rocker, and Nybluejeans who each provided 5 community copies 🧡
The Museum of Extraterrestrial Rarities Physical Copy Mailed (US only)
We will mail a physical copy of this pocket-sized zine to the address provided. (Anywhere in the United States). It is printed (with a standard hp printer) on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper and hand-folded into an 8-page zine.
Development log
- Get it for $3 along with 10 other zines!87 days ago
- Individual pages version addedOct 09, 2023
Comments
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Really liked the overall idea with using song titles and had some fun playing alone. For the multiplayer rules I think the space is quite small to write the song titles. I printed on an A4 sheet of paper and I am thinking about a larger print in case I want to play multiplayer.
I could also imagine this as a fun thing to play while listening to the radio as they often display song titles as well.
Hi!!!! Thanks so much for the comment, I have it on my Todoist to get that changed and make room for the title. I found that even when I played it solo I wanted to write the title somewhere, and in zine form it's not bad (you can write it on the page "under" it so it isn't seen right away) but in the one-sheet form that's not the case. But it's nice to have the option of putting it right on the page, too, for a quick reminder like "Oh yeah, this was based on that song!"
Also thanks for liking it so much that you printed it out, too! :D
And yes!!!! LOL I'm so old (and out of touch lol) that I forgot the radio actually shows song titles on it these days 🤣🤣🤣 So I like that too! If I can fit that into the rules, I will
- ✨Beth
This looks like a pretty grand party game. Is there any chance in the future of a full booklet .pdf that includes the instructions?
So sorry! Somehow, I am just now seeing your comment. We usually have the one sheet zine pdf that folds into an 8-page pocket-sized booklet and a pdf that is all the pages individually, so it is easier to read online. Somehow this one didn't have the individual page file, so I uploaded that now. Hopefully that will meet your needs. The file that has been here, does fold into a booklet and includes the game instructions though, so I may be misunderstanding your request? If so just let me know.
~Angel
The one-page document is showing up for me as just four exhibit entry sheets sans instructions
The Individual Pages pdf does have everything so does meet my needs quite well, thank you!
Oh weird! I just downloaded it again (The Museum of Extraterrestrial Rarities Zine.pdf) and it shows the 8 pages: the four on the left are the exhibits and then the right side has the multiplayer rules and cover on the upper half, and the rules and intro across the top.
I'm very glad that the other PDF has everything okay though :D And thanks for pointing out the issue in the first place! 🥳
- ✨Beth
Strange! No idea what's wrong on my end.
Thanks again, y'all made a cool thing!
Thank you so much 🧡 And LOL yeah computers and tech can be super fun, omg it's exhausting sometimes 🤣
- ✨Beth