The game mechanics are heavily rooted in the Basic Role-Playing system, including a rules system is percentile-based. But creator Toren Atkinson noted the mechanic is based "on an old homemade game system of mine from the 80’s". The dice mechanic when performing skills is to roll as high as possible without going over your skill value. The system also brings in the concept of zero dice, which act similar to hero/fate/drama points from other Role-playing game systems.
Setting
The following quote is an accurate summation of the setting. Thirteen billion years later the crew is reconstituted, they hope that Universe 2 has evolved in exactly the same way that the Universe 1 they destroyed had. It mostly did, except for a few small differences, most notably a race of alien conquerors ravaging the solar system. There are also a large number of Lovecraft and Cthulhu references throughout the setting and game manual.
Supplements
There are currently three published adventures for the Spaceship Zero roleplaying game. All are written by at least Toren Atkinson with others credited as noted. All follow an ongoing linear story arc. The titles of the three adventures are:
Asteroid X
Slave Ship of Despair.
The Strange Secret of Dr. Quisling. Inspired by a concept by Bob Wilkins
CD
An album by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets was released a year before the role-playing game hit retail shelves. The original intention was to have both RPG and CD release within a similar timeframe, but the logistics of writing both an album and a role-playing game, trying to coincide their releases, proved to be problematic. The band was touring Canada, promoting the Spaceship Zero album while they were finishing up the final drafts of the role-playing game manuscript. The CD liner notes include a short story about Spaceship Zero and the crew.
Radio Play
In 2016, several "restored" episodes of the 1954 American radio dramas were released to the internet. Episodes include "Chapter One: The Crew Assembles," "Chapter Two: Into the Beyond," "Chapter Three: The Cataclysmic Miscalculation," "Chapter Four: Directive Beta Five," "Chapter Six: Escape From the Hydronauts," and "Chapter Nine: Twenty Minutes of Oxygen." The missing episodes were allegedly lost in a studio fire in 1962.
Comic Book
A short Spaceship Zerocomic book story appeared in the graphic novel anthology Exploded View by Vancouver's Cloudscape Comics in 2010. It is based on the ongoing series of adventures already released and is intended to be a prequel to that story arc. .
Video
In summer 2010 the band filmed footage using a space suit and various props on location in the sand dunes of Richmond BC and a space ship set left over from the TV showDefying Gravity. The footage was cut into a video for their song "20 Minutes of Oxygen" and as a trailer for the film, and premiered at the event Cthulhupalooza II: Son of Cthulhupalooza in February 2011 in Vancouver.
Marketing
To enhance the ideas of the setting, the developers have based the game on a number of false documents, namely by referencing the game to television shows, radio plays, and films which did not and do not exist. As the book explains, the game is based on a 1950s German radio play. The German radio play was based on a 1930s American moviehouse serial called Spaceship to the Stars. The German radio play eventually spawned a German television show that aired from 1978 to 1980. And all this has spawned an American film production. The game plays off the ruse in a variety of ways. For instance, a section of the book is devoted to episode summaries from the "old television series". And fake websites, hosted by the games' authors, detail the film's production. The marketing of the CD is similar - being referred to and played-up as a soundtrack. The hoax has been readily accepted in a number of reviews for the title. However, there neither is nor was any related film or plan to make one. This was, again, part of the elaborate ruse that played further into the premise of the roleplaying game. Atkinson confirmed in an interview that "There was never a Spaceship Zero movie, nor was there a TV show or radio serial upon which that movie was based.".
