From a list of twelve candidates, players must select six to join the mission. The selection process involves acquiring information about the candidates and fully engages participants as they play against a group of experts who have all the candidate data. Players make their selections based on attributes that fall into nine categories: gender, age, religion, profession, health, nationality, reason for going, positive attributes, and negative attributes. In the process they discover that frequently their judgments are biased and influenced by stereotypes. Participants come to understand that differences and diversity are not synonymous with problems and difficulties but rather can enrich human experience. They discover that they have overlooked the benefits of the differences they were inclined to devalue. Non-expert teams receive an allotment of points at the beginning of the game with which to "buy" information about the candidates from the game director. The winning team is the one with the highest score, based (for the non-expert teams) on the points they have left at the end of the game combined with the points earned for the number of "matches" they make with the choices of the expert team. The expert team gains points based on the number of nonmatches made by the non-expert teams. An Alien among Us is designed to be flexible so that facilitators can substitute real-life situations for the interplanetary mission. For example, participants could select six junior executives for a company's overseas training program, or six police officers to work in multiethnic teams. Alien requires a minimum of nine players (and can accommodate as many as forty players or even more, with theaddition of an assistant facilitator). The game is suitable for players from about the ninth grade to adult, and it takes approximately ninety minutes to play and debrief. All of the handouts for the players and forms for the game director are in the Game Materials section of the manual. The manual is printed on 8.5" x 11" paper for ease of photocopying.