Charybdis

As part of the Galactic Sciences Coalition fleet, several vessels—including your ship—have been experimenting on a mysterious black hole, NGC 7841, nicknamed Charybdis, for the last several weeks. It was a routine mission until those fools on the GSCV Narwhal miscalculated their hyperjump and disappeared into the event horizon! Your ship’s alarms scream danger: your instruments register a sudden and violent increase in the black hole’s diameter. The black hole is relentlessly growing larger, and you are dangerously close! You know you must leave before being gobbled up by the black hole, but your hyperjump drive is useless now that the event horizon is so close, and the gravity waves make your sub-light drive slow and unreliable. If you are to survive, you must escape using every means available to you. Think! An idea springs to mind: Could you use your ship’s powerful tractor beams to help pull yourself to safety? But what could you target with enough mass and momentum to make a difference? As the inescapable answer washes over you, you set your jaw in resignation at what you must do. For years you’ve worked closely with the crews on the other ships, and some of them are even close friends. But now, you order your crew to warm up the tractor beam emitters and target the ship ahead… It’s everyone for themselves at the edge of forever. Gameplay In Charybdis, you captain a ship and crew trying to escape from the orbit of a black hole that is relentlessly expanding. Your engines are affected by the singularity, so there is only one way to guarantee survival: by targeting other ships with your tractor beam to pull yourself to safety, while dragging them closer to their ultimate doom. On each turn, you roll your Crew Dice, choosing which to keep and which to re-roll. Your goal is to create combos that allow you to assign your Crew to the various tasks aboard your Ship: manning the Helm (movement), maintaining the Fusion Generators (energy), or upgrading your Navigational Computer, Tractor Beam, or Shields. You can use your Tractor Beam to steal dice from your opponents, which you roll on your turn in addition to your Crew Dice. These extra dice give you a boost while slowing down your unfortunate targets. You can even lock a Tractor Beam on nearby Asteroids, but watch out--Asteroids can trap you with their gravity and drag you closer to your doom. After each player has a turn, Asteroids trapped in the Black Hole's gravity fall inward, and then the Event Horizon expands, potentially devouring your Ship and Crew. Charybdis took 1st place for Best Artwork & Graphic Design, 1st place for Best Written Rules, and 2nd place for Best Overall Design in the 2016 One-Page PNP Contest (see contest results).