You're in charge of a generation ship carrying 1,000 colonists in cryo suspension. You don't know exactly where you're going. You won't arrive for centuries. Your job is to keep everyone alive long enough to find somewhere worth landing.
Each year you get a report. Resources tick up or down. Events fire — some are choices, some are just things that happen to you. Factions form aboard the ship and start pulling against each other. The crew drifts — ideologically, genetically, psychologically — and the UI starts to reflect it.
There are 11 endings. Most of them are bad.
What I'm looking for:
- How far did you get, and what killed you?
- Did anything feel unfair vs. appropriately punishing?
- Was there a moment where you understood what the game was actually about?
Free download, Windows/Linux. A full run is 30–60 minutes. https://garanlorn.itch.io/dead-reckoning
Any feedback appreciated. Even "It sucks".
I'm a writer. I'd love to help!
I mean I don't judge, I've used AI too for mockups. I don't know man. I do know the writing needs some help, good stuff that can be used as springboards in there, but whatever.
I finished my first run on a planet with 45% habitability, good ending. I felt like overall the game loop is more or less "click next", and "choose x or y". It would be cool to have some more micromanagement of the crew.
You know how you have a crew tab with people who are in cryo? They all have different abilities and allegiances, could be an idea to explore to be able to take them in and out of cryo sleep so you can have an impact on the ship status.
Right now it feels like as a player you're mostly left to drift, there were some options for researching tech and emergency protocols, but I felt like they didn't really matter or were vague. I'd say that this game has a lot of potential but probably needs to focus more on fleshing out the gameplay and player interaction/options.
It's a good skeleton to build something cool on, like a Oxygen Not Included, Faster Than Light type crossover.
Awesome. DM me and send me some samples. I'm happy to discuss this further! Honestly the writing is the story, and I agree on building it out from x or y. The main challenge is making sure the logic works for the basics, and then adding to the schema after it works (Hence the placeholder writing).
But I love your ideas of skilled workers. It's nice to balance the personal and systemic.
Anyways, let me know! At the very least I can promise to give you whatever payment I receive if you're down. Would love to enrich the tone through actual, thoughtful writing. Cheers!