With this variation, you can play 'What On Earth Are You Talking About?' with two or three players. This game mode also works for larger groups of people who would rather work together than compete against each other. Skeleton Crew is played just like the main game, except everyone is on the same team working together to complete a full orbit within a set countdown.

Each turn, the Alien (guesser) role will rotate between the players. Like in the main rules, the player(s) who aren't guessing will be explaining Earth concepts using Translator Cards.

The countdown starts at:
• 24 minutes for Recruits (Easy)
• 18 minutes for Crew (Medium)
• 12 minutes for Officers (Hard)

Once the countdown begins, the Humans have two minutes to translate as many Earth concepts as possible. Once the Alien has guessed three Earth concepts correctly, you can either pause the timer or continue playing for the entire two minutes. The role of Alien now passes onto the next player, and the 2-minute timer starts again.