Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game News

We’re 10 months into the new project. The game starts taking shape and now we can share early screenshots with you. At this stage, they are proof of concept at best, rough and unpolished, but we’ve always built our games in the open, with our community, and we welcome your thoughts.

This community represents our biggest audience and your buy-in is critical to the game's success and our survival. Heralds might not be Colony Ship 2, but our worldbuilding, complex combat, and multi-path design remain at the heart of this project.





Heralds will have a lot of creatures, big and small, ranging from humanoid non-men (the old races different for each region; no, no elves and dwarves) to massive mammoth-like beasts and anything in between, like the summoned tentacles above. While the focus is on combat, you won't fight the elder gods (on account of you being an insignificant insect) but there will be plenty of interactions involving said gods and the good ol' fashioned scheming and double-crossing, resulting in six distinctive endings.

If you're keeping track, our original assessment was 50/50 (odds of turning this idea into a playable game in 5 years). Now it's 70/30 in our favor. I like these odds better, but we all know how many promising projects never made it to release. There’s still a long road ahead of us and it’s better to assess the risks realistically and communicate honestly.

Colony Ship remains our main budget generator (in 2025 CS' revenue share is 90.4%, AoD 8.3%, DR 1.4%; similar picture in 2024). While future sales are hard to predict and harder to rely on, we should be able to get to the alpha stage, at least. And if Colony Ship sells better than expected in the next 2 years, then we'll be able to do more - more unique assets, extra questlines, upgradable spells, proper dungeons, etc.

Many people ask about supporter editions and donations; while we appreciate your generosity, the best way to support us is to leave a review, no matter how brief. Reviews boost visibility and influence sales, and we'll need all the help we can get there,

Thank you in advance. If you have any questions, we'll be happy to answer.

[p]Vagrus: The Riven Realms is an award-winning, turn-based, open-world dark fantasy strategy-RPG set in a deeply immersive world shaped by over two decades of tabletop roleplaying. Developed by Lost Pilgrims, a team who built their own setting – the Riven Realms – through countless DnD-style campaigns, the game features over 2.5 million words of story-driven, lore-heavy, richly-branching narrative that captures the spirit of classic tabletop adventures. In the game, the player takes the role of a vagrus - a sort of a caravan leader who makes a living in a strange and dangerous dark fantasy world by leading a traveling company on all kinds of ventures.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][p]Lost Pilgrims have just posted a huge announcement on their Steam development blog about releasing their second expansion of Vagrus – At the Heart of Ruin along with a Ruinous Supporter Pack – on Steam and various console platforms. This expansion offers a tight but multi-layered and dense region fraught with conflict and rich with opportunities. Vagri who decide to brave the forsaken paths of this broken realm will be challenged not only by new foes and villains, but also by the very nature one must traverse the mountainous terrain.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Content and Features[/h3]

• [p]A fresh, dangerous region unfettered from Imperial dominance and brimming with peril[/p]
• [p]A dark narrative adventure with several overarching stories as well as shorter adventures[/p]
• [p]Deep quests with multiple outcomes and a plethora of personalities[/p]
• [p]Many new opportunities and challenges for traders, mercenaries, and explorers[/p]
• [p]A host of new enemies, be they crazed scavengers or creatures cursed beyond recognition[/p]
• [p]A large cast of NPCs, some new and some old, who can be a part of your story[/p]
• [p]New minor factions the likes of which few vagri have ever had the chance to befriend or fight against[/p]
• [p]New obstacles, rewards, lore, and more of our signature visual art[/p]

[p][/p]

[p]Click here to read Part I.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It's been 6 months since we started working on the next project. We'll have to reevaluate the situation by the end of the year, but right now the future looks a little bit brighter. Here's a short update:[/p]

• [p]Setting - good progress, evolving fast, loving it personally.[/p]
• [p]Systems - the first iteration is done (on paper, the full implementation would take at least 2 years); while this is merely the first step and the final iteration would look like a distant cousin, this first step is important as it's like creating coherent order (where everything makes sense and works together) out of chaos of different ideas. [/p]
• [p]Combat - we have a rough prototype that looks good (maybe even surprisingly good) with the placeholders (as we don't have any assets yet, which is the real tragedy here).[/p]
• [p]World Map - unlike our previous games, the worldmap is a massive playable level and thus something new. It's shaping up well and Unreal 5 is a real marvel when it comes to terrain.[/p]
• [p]Weapons - we'll need 30 weapons (5 weapons per category, 6 categories - swords, axes, maces, spears, bows, crossbows) plus as many uniques. Fortunately, we have a good artist, so that's one less problem.[/p]
• [p]Armor - it would be nice to have 30 armor sets that show visual progression. Damage Resistance would only go to 7 or 8 (before upgrades) so we'd have to rely on the other stats like Hardness or Resistance to differentiate armor in a meaningful way. It seems we finally have a good artist (working on the test armor which looks good so far), so fingers crossed.[/p]
• [p]Location models (to go with the world map) - good progress there, see below; the three main cities are done, the rest (lesser towns, forts, ruins, and camps) should be easier.[/p]
• [p]Creatures - we have a long list, but haven't started yet, hopefully the location artist can handle it (he did the creatures for Colony Ship), probably year 2 (currently we're in pre-production so year 0).[/p]
• [p]Secondary items (potions, rings, amulets, alchemy and crafting components, etc) - probably year 3. [/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Harudal, the city of golden domes and bright lights visible for miles. Beneath that shining crown lies a mining town: cramped and dirty, ever burrowing deeper in search of ore. Space atop the mountain is scarce, so they push downward—into the old shafts, the collapsed tunnels, the hollow places that were never meant to be lived in.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Meanwhile in Sankarum, the great southern seaport:[/p][p][/p][p]Wearily, the Tidekeeper of Sankarum took his seat and gestured to the priests to proceed with the Offering. How many has it been this year? He lost count. In his father's days, a single sacrifice was enough to buy safe passage for a month, but now blood must flow with every tide to keep his ships afloat. And what was he without his ships? A lord of stone cliffs where nothing grows? He shook his head. [/p][p]The sea was a harsh queen, and they lived and died at her pleasure. Every seaman knew that his fate was sealed the moment he stepped onto a ship's deck. Sooner or later the tides would take them all, but as long as the blood price was paid, they could all live to see another day. And then perhaps another....[/p][p]A servant interrupted his thoughts, whispering in his ear. More trouble, this time over the trading towns. The Tidekeeper's efforts to gain ascendancy on the coast near Zangabar was drawing the wrath of the desert people, but without warships or sea whisperers, there was little they could do. Worse was the word of Harudal laying claim to yet another town. This required serious considerations, especially if the rumors were true.[/p][p]Harudal was growing strong, while its rivals struggled to survive. That the mountain clans had struck some bargain with the accursed Ythlir was hardly a secret. Without it, their men wouldn't have lasted a day underground. The god of the sky holds no sway beneath the earth; there in the darkness you make your pact with darker things, whether you want to or not. [/p][p]But there were limits there, lines that should never be crossed... Shouldn't they? Or was everything he was taught as a child wrong? Time would tell, it always did.[/p][p][/p]

- Optimized performance inside Hydro Green camp.
- Improved PC walking animation.
- Party members now walk when the PC is walking.
- Improved several dialogue cameras.
- Fixed typos.

Before switching to the new project, we went over Colony Ship one last time to see what else we can improve and add:

• Improved visuals in the Pit, Hydroponics, and Mission Control
  
• Minor visual pass across the board
  
• Arena crowd during matches
  
• Animated Hydroponics' bioreactor (quite a difference)
  
• Improved camera in certain dialogue interactions
  
• More civilian animations
  
• More interactions and dialogue options
  
• A stealth option to escape the detention centre
  
• A colorblind mode for the stealth mode (sorry it took so long)
  
• Party members' gear comparison when trading
  
• New NPC portraits, including monks and mutants
  
• New combat tracks
  
• Balance improvements and fixes
  
• Further optimization

New details and lighting, before:


After:


To new players, we hope you'll enjoy the game. To 'old' players, as always, thank you for your faith and support over the years.