Introduction

Only one star ship remains: yours. Unfortunately, you’re missing some key crew members… actually, your crew is entirely captains, and one engineer. You’ll need need to work together to operate the ship’s weapons, shields, and thrusters to survive the dangers of outer space. There’s just one problem: the engineer can’t see the screen, so everyone will need to talk it out, FAST!

How to Play

The Captains

As a captain, your job is to monitor the viewing screen and decide how to run the ship. Will you focus on defense? Destroying enemy ships? Evasive maneuvers? Whatever you do, you'll need to think out loud, since only the engineer can actually control the ship!

The Engineer

The captains might have the information, but you've got the power. Listen for orders from your captains and make them so as you operate the ship's control board. Orders will come quickly, and may be contradictory, so brace yourself for some frantic wiring.

The ID Cards

Board the ship by scanning your ID card. A minimum of two captains and one engineer must scan into the ship before playing. However, up to six captains and one engineer can play at once. More than that would be too many!

The Controller

Every aspect of the ship can be configured with just three wires: red, blue, and yellow. However, with 12 ports on the controller, there are dozens of different ways to wire up the ship, so you'll need to think quickly and make some tough tradeoffs!

Engineer's Controls

Captains' View

Media

Awards

Mailing List

Love the game? Join our mailing list for updates on where to play next! No spam, captain's honor!

About

Avi Romanoff

Giada Sun

Too Many Captains is a project by Avi Romanoff and Giada Sun.

Special thank you to Yiran Zhang for sound design, and to Caroline Hermans for playing the Engineer in the training video and for assisting with interaction design and testing.

This project was supported in part by funding by the CS+X Fund for Creative Collaborations (endowed by Alfred Z. Spector and Rhonda G. Kost), and by the Carnegie Mellon University Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art @ the Frontier.

Contact Us

Want to bring Too Many Captains to your event or festival? Want to build your own? We'd love to hear from you! Drop us a line at crew@toomanycaptains.com.