Table-Tested Review of “Orbital”
Orbital’s cover alone made me want to play this game, but it is much more than just a pretty zine. It’s a game about a space station, the last neutral outpost in an interstellar war. You’ll play as people on this station, but also the station itself and the world around it, the game’s rules and structure supporting the portrayal of this kind of story in unique ways. I ran a two-shot of Orbital and had a grand time.
Before we get into the details, some quick facts!
- Game Designer: Jack Harrison
- Publication Year: 2021
- Page Count: 28, plus play materials
- System: Belonging Outside Belonging (no dice, no masters, token-based)
Photo of the zine kindly provided by the author
The Rules
Orbital is powered by the “Belonging Outside Belonging” engine, a system designed to portray marginalized groups in their own community. It was first developed in “Dream Askew / Dream Apart” by Avery Alder | Buried Without Ceremony. Knowing the original game is in no way necessary, although it does go into a lot more detail about the game engine’s design intentions and how to run a successful game, so it definitely wouldn’t hurt to take a look inside.
In every game there will be a facilitator: they can participate in the game in the same way as everyone else does, but they will know the rules, introduce safety tools and probably do the organisational work that is usually done by the person running the game. Play is then structured by players taking turns choosing what kind of scene they want to play and using moves and tokens to guide their decisions. Players can either play their own character or what the game calls an “aspect” in a scene: these portray the world around the characters and are things like “The Station itself” or “The Interstellar War”.
If GM-led games are more your thing, there are optional rules to do that! One player can take up all aspects, while the others play their characters only. But if you have never played a GM-less game, I urge you to try it out: it’s eye-opening how much creativity can flow from a whole table of people, instead of just one gamemaster.
It’s not only a game without a gamemaster, it’s also without dice. The rules are pretty straightforward: you can make “weak moves”, which are actions that make the situation worse for your character and which will give you a token, and you can make “strong moves”, which can help in a situation in considerable ways and which will cost a token. Furthermore, “basic moves” are suggested actions and directions your character can take in the story. The different kinds of moves are a great way to stay in genre and to use as inspiration if you can’t think of something cool to say or do. It’s a system for making flawed characters that make bad decisions without being mechanically disincentivised. Using a weak move rewards you mechanically for doing just that and even makes it necessary, if you ever want to do your strong moves.
Since everyone contributes multiple voices, it can occasionally become confusing who someone is speaking as. It helps to make it very clear who you’re playing in a scene. This way of playing also means that it rarely happens that all the characters are in a scene together. While this worked out most of the time, there were moments where we had more characters and aspects in a scene than there were players. It all worked out in the end, though.
Photo of the zine kindly provided by the author
The Vibe
In Orbital you get to explore a wide range of perspectives. You’ll not only step into the shoes of your character, you’ll also play the world around you, all the factions and other forces, the people on board the station. “Belonging Outside Belonging” games really offer a unique experience that I haven’t quite seen elsewhere.
The game starts with character creation and collective worldbuilding and we were immediately enthralled by it. It’s a kind of “fill in the blanks” character creation with a lot of suggestions to fill in, which makes for fantastic characters that fit the theme and are still highly customizable. Each character was more intriguing than the next. Creating your character and your space station is a guided experience and ends with enough hooks to start into a session right away, with the threats to your space station lined up and your characters motivated to take them on.
The setting leans heavily into sci-fi but with some magical touches here and there, that can be featured more prominently depending on the group’s choices.
And there’s a soundtrack! I greatly enjoyed having it run in the background, although it can be tricky to have the exact right song (e.g. a character’s theme) play at the right time of character creation.
Beyond Orbital
After you’ve finished your game of Orbital, there’s more! In “Satellite Descent” you’ll find four games for solo or duo play (and two more characters to play as in a normal game). They use combinations of card decks, various dice, tokens, journalling and/or letter writing. Some of them are small slices of life on and around the station, while others explore the life of certain NPCs from the game itself further. It’s a charming addition to the game, especially for those who enjoy solo-games.
Conclusion
I greatly enjoyed Orbital and how easy the simple, narratively-minded mechanics made collaborative storytelling. It’s a good mix of sci-fi and drama, with a dash of magic.
That being said, as a book it could have been a bit more organised. I found myself flipping through the pages a lot and information is not necessarily presented in the order you’ll need it on the table. But it’s a short game and I got the hang of it pretty quickly.
While the game is advertised as a system suited for one-shots, it took us roughly 7 hours to complete, with a bit of a rush towards the end. Character creation is a highly creative process and we often lost ourselves in worldbuilding which is facilitated by the system extremely well. It’s just enough guidance to get creativity flowing and still loose enough to tell stories unique to your table. If a single session is all you have, the process could probably be cut short easily enough by a GM that knows the system. That being said, I do recommend to give the game the time it needs to unfold naturally - it’s worth it.
