1. Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game
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Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game News

Colony Ship stream is now LIVE!

Watch developers play the game for your amusement and ask questions should you have any.

Check this FAQ first:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/648410/discussions/0/3077621988062610529/

First Chapter's overview:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/648410/view/3019074494734257463

Colony Ship stream is now LIVE!

Watch developers play the game for your amusement and ask questions should you have any.

Check this FAQ first:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/648410/discussions/0/3077621988062610529/

First Chapter's overview:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/648410/view/3019074494734257463

First Chapter's Overview

We've been working on Colony Ship for 5 long years, modifying the engine, building tools and systems (character, combat, stealth, dialogue, inventory, AI, pathfinding, etc), creating thousands of assets, and - finally - the first chapter of the game:



Turn-based combat with action points and different attack types with different pros and cons. Gather a party of adventurers or explore the Ship alone.



Turn-based stealth: action points, noise and alert meters, and takedowns.



Dialogues with various checks: stats, skills, reputation, items, deeds, etc.

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You start the game in the Pit, a container town sitting in one of the Ship's cargo holds. From there you can travel to two nearby 'locations': the Armory and Hydroponics. These and other locations will change and evolve throughout the game.



The Pit. The Free City. Ever since you were a kid, this has been your home: a sprawling heap of vacant cargo containers slowly getting filled up with those who couldn't afford to stay in the Habitat or needed to get away from its bosses and factions. Out here, folks have lived free and died fast, with those who survive earning their keep by either "diving" into the wreckage of Mission Control and bringing back valuable relics of the past, or figuring out a way to make money off the fools who do the diving.



Your destination lies ahead – a triply reinforced door flanked by twin auto-cannons drawing on a seemingly inexhaustible power supply. No one made it past during the Mutiny, and no one's made it past since. Like the proverbial flaming sword outside of Eden, it sits as a guardian, a symbol of ancient strength, and a promise of marvels beyond.



The Hydroponic Division was originally conceived to adapt Terran plants to the anticipated environment of Proxima Centauri. Extensive gene-editing was employed to develop resistance to alien fungi and pests, and accelerated adaptation hacked into the plants' genetic code.
 
Like many other critical systems, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. The carefully cultivated flora and fauna was left on its own in harsh environs designed to propagate rapid and brutal evolutionary cycles. When men returned to reclaim Hydroponics, they discovered an environment as wild and hostile as any Earth jungle.

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Party members with personal quests, development arcs (reflected in changing portraits), agendas, and beliefs. The first chapter gives you 3 party members out of 10:



... and introduces a party member who might join you later:



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Overall, the first chapter represents a design template (how things work) in every aspect, except for the main quest which will branch into different directions in chapter 2. Before we apply this design template to the new locations, we'd like to show it to our core audience and see what you think. So if you don't mind supporting games still in development, welcome aboard.

Dev update #4 - Hydroponics

The Hydroponic Division was originally conceived to adapt Terran plants to the anticipated environment of Proxima Centauri. Extensive gene-editing was employed to develop resistance to alien fungi and pests, and accelerated adaptation hacked into the plants' genetic code.

Like many other critical systems, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. The carefully cultivated flora and fauna was left on its own in harsh environs designed to propagate rapid and brutal evolutionary cycles. When men returned to reclaim Hydroponics, they discovered an environment as wild and hostile as any Earth jungle...





Frogs are already used in agriculture as a form of biological pest control as they have a healthy appetite for insects and are highly resistant to insecticide. Plus they have a wide range of natural abilities: jumping, toxic venom, hallucinogen, even retractable spikes (the wolverine frog), which would make them a top choice when it comes to cost-effective terraforming.

The frog is a 'hard to hit, easy to kill' critter (high evasion due to the small size and mobility, low hit points and no damage resistance). They will attack in packs and come in 3 varieties: bullfrog (leg biter that will go for the throat when a character is knocked down or down on one knee), poison spitter, and psyker (fucks with your head from a comfortable distance). It's a low level critter that prefers easy prey (i.e. low level, poorly equipped parties). They aren't very aggressive and won't attack unless threatened. When you run into them for the first time, they'll be busy feasting on a corpse. If you want to go through that corpse's pockets, you'll have to kill the frogs first.











That's all for now. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your families!

Multiple Quest Solutions

We continue working on quests and mechanics, aiming to start beta-testing the first 3 locations in Dec and release on Early Access in March next year.

Since you're here for some screens, let's illustrate multiple solutions in combat-heavy scenarios and show our new turret. As you probably know, the starting town's conflict is between Jonas representing freedom, Deadwood-style, that some might call lawlessness and Braxton representing law & order that some might call gubment telling folks what to do and – to add insult to injury – charging tax for the privilege.

It won't be much of a spoiler to tell you that the conflict ends up in a shootout, but what if open assault isn't your style? Then (upon request) you'll be tasked with preventing the locals from coming to Jonas' aid while Braxton's forces do all the heavy lifting. So that's two very different options already but the design miracles don't stop there.

Once you go down that path you get 3 new options: diplomacy (which in turn branches into relying on Impersonate to con the local yokels and Persuasion to convince them that resistance is futile), combat (in case you change your mind and decide to fight after all), and a mix of thievery and jury-rigging. There's an old turret there that's been stripped for parts. You can explore the nearby area while you have time (Lockpick will help a lot here), find the parts and some ammo, and use your Computer skill to fix the targeting module.


^ the last option won't appear unless you fixed the turret. Let's go with 1.







Now let's go back to the beginning and pick option 3 (fire up the turret)



And finally some combat:



That's it for today. Next month we'll show you the Hydroponics and hopefully announce the upcoming beta-test. Stay tuned.

If you like what you see, please Follow and Wishlist the game on Steam, since you're already on this page. Thanks in advance!