Artemis

by Mandy Seley
Mandy\'s avatar

Playing a game – Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator

Fox\'s avatar

I’ve never actually played the game at any of our parties. 🙂 I just dressed up as Scruffy from Futurama and just sat around on break.

We did, however, create badges and forced anyone who didn’t show up with a costume to wear a red shirt. (We bought a half dozen or so)

Forgot to mention: The lion in the last panel is a new appearance, another friend of ours: Joe.
Phil and Daniel have appeared previously, this actually being the last of a recent party story arc where all were in attendance.

50 comments on “Artemis”

  2. I remember playing this game in my IT class, we had about 5 people along the wall; we did horribly.

    1. Yeah, that’s kinda the point. 🙂
      If you take it too seriously you’re doing it wrong. If you’re at our house anyway.

    1. All I ask is that you really try–the level of accomplishment is unimportant, as long there was at least a little effort put in. That’s basically the rule for all our costume parties.
      The request was “Anything space related”. Many of our friends are intelligent and creative, so they recognize that, even if you don’t have a complete Star Trek costume, you can look around with what you do have and put something together that fits the theme. One of our friends looks a good deal like Riker and went as him for Halloween, so he already had his.
      Phil, who’s pictured in the comic in a trek costume was actually a Space Pirate for the event. I think Joe, the lion in this one, showed up with a T-shirt that had a sci-fi related image or something, to which I responded by throwing a red-shirt at him and told him to change. Another showed up as Simon Tam, and yet another as a sexy alien cat-girl.

      I never discourage attractive women from wearing as little as possible at my events.

      At one of our Halloween parties we reprogrammed the electronic lock on our front door (after literally barricading the front steps with sandbags) and disconnected the doorbell, replacing it with a two-way radio. We also had a hidden camera outside, so all guests inside could see what was going on as we spoke with them. If the party thought they put enough thought and time into their costumes, or brought enough provisions (It was a survival/zombie themed party, most of the power was cut, etc) we’d radio them the door code to let them into the ‘safe house’. If not, we’d tell them “The council is deciding” and let them sweat it out on the front porch while we sent all the zombie party guests out the back door to race around front and flank the newcomer. The stairs made it impossible to get away, and the camera made it hilarious to watch for the rest of the party.
      So after they were sufficiently freaked out, we let them inside, and had our ‘doctor’ take a look at them, which means we sent them downstairs into ‘the lab’ (complete with spinning red light and everything) and he’d ‘work on them’. Which means I hung up a sheet, placed a camera on it, then back-lit the spot where the doctor would apply make-up to the person sitting in the chair to turn them into a zombie. (They’d been ‘bitten’ earlier.) The result was two silhouettes on the sheet with it looking like the doctor was carving up their face, all displayed on the security monitors upstairs.

      That’s a really long story to basically say: “If people don’t show up in costume, we’re crazy enough that we’ll probably put you in one, but you might not like it.” 🙂 Halloween and costumes are one of our passions, and we’ve so many props and resources laying around we can usually put something together for anything, even other people. Heck, I bought new work clothes in green just to be Scruffy from Futurama because I can use them around the house, and getting them dirty just improves the costume.

      Comments should never be this long, but I was in a chatty mood, and this is a passion of ours. 🙂

      1. That’s pretty awesome. Actually, change the “pretty” to “really”.

      2. Sounds like it would almost be worth it not to show up in costume.

  4. There is a video where Wil Wheaton (played Wesley Crusher in STTNG) plays this game alongside other celebs.

  5. Oh God. I fucking hate this game.
    Don’t be the captain. NOBODY will take you seriously. Every command I gave was brushed off and usually the opposite of what that command was will be done, resulting in the ship blowing up and wondering why they lost.

    Hell, just give me the other four computers. I’ll run the bleeding ship by myself. A team of monkeys could do a better job at filling in the roles than the guys I got teamed up with.

    1. That really has more to do with the people you played with than the game itself. :v

  6. I mistook this comic for a Star Trek parody the first time I saw it.

    Just saying.

  7. I’m not much of a Star Trek fan – I prefer my sci-fi with more gunslinging and dirt.

    I wore PJs and a Chewbacca robe.

    2. I have a foreign dvd of a war between the ST and BB5 universes. (Kirk wants to take over!) The space battle is actually pretty well done and if you watch closely you’ll see the Millenium Falcon make a cameo. 🙂

      1. “Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning”
        It was rereleased with somewhat modified ship designs to avoid the possibility of legal issues with Paramount and whoever holds the B5 rights. Having seen the original cut, the battle is indeed fantastic, given that it was basically the work of a few hobbyists.

        1. I may have the original version; the Millenium Falcon is very recognizable. 🙂

      1. She’s never seen Farscape. I practically had to tie her down to watch Firefly.

        The difference is I knew she’d like Firefly.

      2. I did like Firefly! (yeah it took me a while to get around to it, new series feel like obligations so I drag my feet on watching them. It’s a flaw, I know)

        I watched a lot of Babylon 5 because my ex loved it, and it was pretty good, but I haven’t had a desire to watch it again. Stuff that’s kinda pure “space-agey modern futuristic spaceship” doesn’t seem to hold my interest as well as “space cowboys” do.

        So for Star Wars, I loved the smugglers and bounty hunters, loved the clone troopers even, but kinda yawned my way through the whole Jedi space religion with lightsabers thing.

    4. IIRC in a couple of the EU novels it was explained that the Empire started using Conscripts because they were cheaper than Clones (hence the terrible marksmanship)

  8. Did … FOX
    move
    AROUND
    on his
    CHAIR just
    like captain Kirk
    Does on the
    CLASSIC
    Star Trek?

  9. So did Joe get incinerated by a laser or get accidentally ground up in a the super space future on board coffee grinder a la’ red shirt?

  10. That game looks really fun. I’ll have to see if I can convince my friends to play it with me.

    Though I admit, it took me a couple of readings to catch that the things on fire were the sensors, as opposed to the enemy’s shields.

  11. First off, just want to say, I love this comic and I’ll have to check out that bridge simulator.

    A small suggestion … could you perhaps create a cast page? I can’t keep track of who’s what anymore. 🙂

    1. i actually really like the idea of the cast page thingy, would help people follow who’s who

  12. Ahhh Artemis.
    My friends and I will get together for some good-sized games. Usually enough for two ships. We’ll have the ‘main crew’ on the big projection screen, with the desktops, while another bunch pilot a light cruiser in the corner on tablets and phones.
    We have become *very* adept at the maneuver we call… wait, we haven’t named it, have we? Hm. Well, ‘Poor Man’s Nukakazi’ sounds good. Basically, max power to front shields. Charge an enemy cluster. When in the middle, drop a mine or two, and switch shields to aft. Admire prtty kaboom.
    The other one that we’re not so adept at is to lure the Space Nasty into the path of an oncoming fleet, and watch it eat them. This one is a bit tricky. And painful.

  13. we played this game at a Scifi con around where i live we were the furry soldiers everyone played in either ful fursuits or wore a storm trooper helmet…do not make your gunner wear a storm trooper helmet as the gunner i must say i now understand the issues the 501rst storm troopers have with sight. i just ended up using nukes and mines all the time. we still won but it was a pain and had to reload all the time…grr

  14. We all know Scruffy is the real brains behind the Planet Express crew

  15. There’s Klingons on the starboard bow~
    Starboard bow, starboard bow~
    There’s Klingons on the starboard bow~
    Scrape ’em off Jim!
    – Star Trekkin’ by The Firm

    1. Space ships are full of oxygen. Some compounds can carry their own oxidizers. I’ve heard lithium polymer batteries can burn underwater.

      1. Don’t forget about plasma cutters and plasma in general. What is still partly sci-fye is being made possible… I want a lightsaber

    2. They must be losing oxygen. They should probably lock that section down so they don’t lose more

      1. Maybe they have oxygen pills..? (‘Fireball XL-5’ reference! How old are -you-?? 🙂 )

        1. Not old enough, it was made a couple decades before I was even born lol. Sorry 🙂

          1. 🙂 It was my favorite tv show at the time! 🙂 I had the theme song on my old pc. 🙂

          2. I may have to look it up and watch it now that we have totally tangented off the subject:)

  18. Love playing Artemis, my girlfriend loves being Science Officer, and I learned I’m good at engineering and comms, but a terrible helmsan.

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