Description

This is Your Captain Speaking launches you onto the deck of an interstellar spacecraft rife with cutthroat ambition. You might be boldly venturing across the galaxy in the pursuit of scientific discovery, but this is no sci-fi utopia. Everyone aboard this ship, from First Officer to Sewage Processor, has their eye on the coveted Captaincy. Will the beleaguered Captain hang on or will one of your scheming underlings manage to manoeuvre their way to the top?

In This is Your Captain Speaking, each player takes control of the fates of a range of crew members aboard the ship, attempting to get them onto 'away missions' where Commendations may be awarded - critical to success as a would-be Captain. Missions are dangerous, though - and depending on who it is that has influence on the right crew members at the right time, they could be fatal. Players jostle for the highest rank in each ship department, each of which confers powerful crew duties performed after each mission. Wrestle to the Captaincy, or sabotage your opponents in order to control the Bridge. This is Your Captain Speaking is the ultimate game in devious plans, shocking twists of fate and Captains starting from humble beginnings.

Each round consists of a series of 'missions' and 'crew duties' capped off with a 'starbase' phase. Depending on who is in charge of which department, crew characters are selected to participate in a mission - which could be lucrative or perilous...each character rolls on the encounter table to see just how bad of a time they had off-ship. Which planet Navigation chose for them will dramatically affect the outcome of each mission. Woven throughout every phase of the game are devious 'schemes' that players can action to manipulate the circumstances of the crew to their advantage.

After each mission is resolved (and any deceased crew members are removed and their underlings promoted), players then action the crew duties in order - with the highest-ranking character in each department wielding the powerful effects that round. Will they mitigate the impact of a mission, or take advantage of a crew member's injuries to promote their own. In each 'year', after two mission-duties cycles, the crew will stop off at a starbase to refuel (and for players to command control of more of the surviving crew...)

Players win by either having one of their controlled characters in the Captain's chair holding at least three commendations at the end of a 'year', or at the end of three years having scored the most points across their controlled crew.