Good Alien, Bad Alien

  • Aliens have invaded, and this could very well be our last night on Earth! Which is great! Nothing really helps us get to know each other better than being forced into life-threatening situations of galactic proportions. However, in this very room, an alien may be hiding in plain sight.

    Your mission is to determine who here is a secret astral traveler, and most importantly: are they a GOOD ALIEN or a BAD ALIEN?

    • For the digital version of the game, you will need tokens to represent the awarded Good or Bad cards. (Something like coins or two different colored candies will work. Starbursts are a fun option—you can eat them and keep the wrappers. Bonus: they have 'star' in the name. Sadly, not a sponsor.)

    • Each player starts the game with 2 Good Alien tokens and 2 Bad Alien tokens.

    • Shuffle the deck of Good Alien, Bad Alien, and Portal challenge cards.

    • Determine who goes first. (We’re not going to tell you how. Just… ya know… sort it out, folks.)

  • The game is played over 7 rounds. Each round, players take turns drawing a card and following the prompt.

    1. Each player, in turn, draws a card and reads the challenge aloud.

    2. The player has up to 60 seconds to award the card to someone in the group (they cannot award it to themselves).

    3. If there’s disagreement, it’s the job of the other players to make their case for who deserves the card the most.

    4. At the end of 60 seconds, a decision must be made.

    5. If the card has a time-based challenge, the chosen player must complete the action to keep it.

  • When you draw a Portal Card, you have two options:

    1. Card Swap – Swap as many Good or Bad Alien tokens as you want with another player’s opposite tokens. (Ex: If you have three Good Alien tokens, you can trade them for up to three Bad Alien tokens from another player.)

    2. Draw Again – Keep drawing until you get a Good Alien or Bad Alien card, then take the corresponding token. (If you draw another Portal Card, discard it and keep drawing.)

    3. Portal Cards do not count toward your total token count. Discard them after use.

  • At the end of 7 rounds, whoever has the most total tokens of one type (either Good Alien or Bad Alien) wins the game and is revealed to have been an alien THE WHOLE TIME!

    • If the winner has more Good Alien tokens: Earth is saved, and you all live to see another day! Great job, team! Pat yourselves on the back. Unless you were secretly hoping for total planetary destruction… in which case, weird flex, but okay.

    • If the winner has more Bad Alien tokens: Well… humanity is enslaved, abducted, doomed, etc. But hey, what a way to go, right? Hopefully, you all had a great time during your last night on Earth!

  • Want to keep playing across multiple rounds? Here’s how to track overall points between sessions:

    • Each 7-round game session represents one night of alien invasion survival.

    • At the end of the session, the player with the most cards of one type (Good or Bad) counts up their total.

    • Every player then counts up their own total for that same type (e.g., if the winner had 7 Bad Alien cards, all players count their Bad Alien cards).

    • These points are tracked as overall points, which accumulate across multiple nights in the apocalpse.

    • It doesn’t matter if they are Good or Bad—they are just points in the end.

    • You can keep playing multiple nights, with an agreed-upon final point goal (e.g., first to 20 overall points, or the most at the end of 3 nights) determining the ultimate winner / secret alien.

  • If two or more players have the same number of Good Alien or Bad Alien tokens at the end of 7 rounds, a Final Judgment must be made.

    1. Draw the next card. Just like in normal play, the card must be awarded within 60 seconds—but this time, only one of the tied players can receive it.

    2. Each remaining group member gets a vote to help decide who should receive the card.

    3. At the end of 60 seconds, the player awarded the card wins the game.

    What if the group can’t agree?

    • If the vote is deadlocked (ex: an even split where no decision can be reached), draw another card and repeat the process.

    • If this happens three times in a row, the debate has taken too long—the aliens wipe out everyone. Nobody wins.

  • If you hurt someone’s feelings, apologize.