Early dark · Word puzzle
Hidden words lie scattered across the rings — capture each in its meridian.
Turn the rings of a brass astrolabe until a word lines up along a meridian, reading centre outward. It flares gold and burns out of the sky.
Deep night · 4X strategy
Two empires wake at opposite ends of a dark sector, holding one world each.
Farm it, mine it, build hulls and send them out. Sensors only reach so far, so the first you see of a fleet is the turn it crosses them.
Dead of night · Co-op action RPG
The colonies went silent. Someone has to walk out and find out why.
Pick one of five classes, loot the desert, the mine and the floating ruins, and take up to three friends. The enemies scale with the party, so bringing more people only means meeting more trouble.
Pitch dark · Pocket pet
It is dark here, and something is hungry.
Raise a grue in your pocket and feed it adventurers. It only eats in the dark, so anyone carrying a light has to be dealt with first. Blow out the candle.
The small hours · 3D skiing
Three runs off one mountain, and a chairlift at the bottom to take you back up.
Carve a summit powder bowl, a double-black corkscrew of tight bends, or a skier-cross course with a jump on every straight. Whoever else is on the run skis it beside you.
Before dawn · A conversation
There is unrest in the forest, trouble with the trees.
Thirty-seven of them, and every trunk has a small door in it. Knock, and the tree tells you what it thinks it is owed. The forest keeps score.
Six games. One long night.