by Jim Wallman
Location TBD. Date TBD.

This game, Watch the Skies, has been played by many groups, universities, and schools all over the UK as well as the USA, Sweden, Singapore, Canada, The Netherlands and Australia. In this way, it created much general interest in playing megagames.

The game is set in the real world of the year 2025, just a few years from now and the conspiracy theories about the existence of aliens and UFOs are in fact true – though the people of the world do not know that yet. Players are grouped into teams, each team playing one of eight countries in the world, namely USA, UK, France, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil and India. There is one mysterious team of aliens who are not from this world.

As the Governments of the world, deciding when to admit publicly to the world that aliens are real will be an important question for you all to discuss right from the start.

You, as the players, represent important government leaders, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Diplomats, Generals and Scientists. You will, during the game, have to deal with real world crises such as wars and earthquakes but at the same time deal with an increasing UFO menace without creating world-wide panic and terror.

In the game you will be making deals and treaties with other teams – trying to increase the wealth of our country and possibly even getting into conflicts using your Armies, Navies and Special Agents. The game is all about how you interact with the other teams.

The important thing each team will be trying to do, will be to make sure their country is safe and secure and does well.

The game rules are not complicated and can be grasped very quickly, even if you're not familiar with board games. As Jim Wallman, the designer of the game, says:

“If you're not sure what to do – find someone on another team and talk to them – you never know, they may have information for you”.

As already indicated above, 8 countries namely USA, UK, France, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil and India will be played. Each team will have:

• A head of state (either a president or prime minister)
• A minister of defense
• A foreign minister
• A chief scientist

Who knows?

Two players will play the media/press.

There will be a team of control umpires:

• Game control
• Map control
• UN / Political control
• Science control
• Alien control
• Player control (could be more than one)

TBD.

All game material will be presented on a separate page, only accessible by the organising committee.