Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io…Aboard the Siren’s Song

A space hulk by Sean McGee, level nil
Written for Mothership
  Happy Halloween everyone, just a little bit early but it’s the right week. I’ve not done any Mothership-only modules before I think, so here’s a little trifold for our horror delight. My experience with trifolds hasn’t exactly been stellar before, but I’m always a hopeful reviewer. Formatting is pretty understandable, little intro blub in the front, fold-side has loot/monsters/dialogue snippets, and the inner fold is a “map” with nine nodes in a link diagram to represent a ship. From these humble elements we are commissioned to go forth and assemble an adventure, ideally a scary one. Let’s see how successful we are.
  I don’t even think the plot needs to be said with the title up there. The Siren’s Song is a derelict space ship. The PCs are tasked with retrieving valuable technology from the wrecked ship. There are other mercenaries aboard, and it’s yet another bug hunt with the ZORAX, a species of hundred-pound dire roaches that make up the wandering encounters of the adventure. Everyone is trying to kill you, the map isn’t particularly interesting, we’re not in Alien, it’s Aliens, and I hope your horror is into automatic weapons and screaming.
  Scraping the bottom of the barrel for what I liked, there is a bit of intelligence in how the bridge of the ship (with valuable tech loot) is locked down but there are a couple methods of bypassing, either finding a locker code to access a keycard or using wounded mercs and a Chewbacca Gambit to get in.

  I’m going to bang my usual drum on the first of what can be improved, give us an actual map especially when you’re boarding a space ship…the thing is a 3D structure floating in the depths of space, take advantage of that in your adventure. This shows well the general paucity of imagination that plagues the whole product, nothing about this couldn’t be a modern-day scenario breaking into a warehouse or something, the bugs could be rabid dogs. Generally, the strengths of sci-fi scenarios rest on how powerful and flexible the players are with a whole range of neat gear, while sci-fi horror also plays up the strange, the alien, and the cosmic…adding that here would require a lot of rewriting, but that’s how you take advantage of the genre. Nothing wrong with a bug hunt in a space hulk, but if I say “bug hunt in a space hulk” and gave you four minutes, a sticky note, and a crayon you could probably come up with a more interesting setup.
  I guess that means our best use case is as a played-straight one-shot. Sadly, not a lot to raid for parts in here so the direct play would be the only value extract.
  Final Rating? */***** because that only value extract ain’t very valuable