Times and Galaxy News

Hello newshounds!

Guess what?! Times & Galaxy is stepping into the shuttle and entering coordinates for June of this year!


[h3]LAUNCH TRAILER[/h3]
We’ve just released a cool new trailer with a bop that won't stop.

Check it out below and curse us later for this earworm.
🎙️🎧🎸🎹

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Song by Doug Hoyer - https://doughoyer.bandcamp.com/



[h3]NEW ART[/h3]
We've also got brand new key art. Look at it!

It features so many characters, and yet somehow is also just a fraction of the amount you’ll meet in the game.
🧑‍🤝‍🧑👯🦎🤖👽


Art by ByronB - https://linktr.ee/byronb



[h3]ABOUT TIMES & GALAXY[/h3]
Times & Galaxy is a funny, heartfelt game about space aliens and the richness of the stories that make up their everyday lives.

Set in a solar system full of space lizards (augers), goo people (xeel), robots (robos) and other assorted species - including regular, albeit often flamboyant humans; you will step into the shoes of a shiny new robo intern for the system’s most trusted holopaper, the Times & Galaxy.

Your goal? Prove that robos CAN report, get to know a whole bunch of aliens, and maybe keep your job at the end of it all. 🤷🏼

Good luck, intern! 🤖

📰 Embark on assignments across the galaxy and get to the bottom of important hyper-local stories such as the Humania Dirt Fair or a Space Ghost Funeral!

📰 Meet a colorful and occasionally tentacled cast of over 100 alien weirdos. Build (or break!) relationships with your fellow reporters and shipmates. Maybe even find love, or whatever it’s called on your planet.

📰 Experience a story of more than 200,000 words, where the choices you make on and off the record will impact both the direction of the holopaper and how your colleagues feel about you.

📰 In-between assignments, explore the Scanner, a huge starship/newsroom converted from a decommissioned warship that operates as you home and the Times & Galaxy office. Talk about work/life balance!

📰 Times & Galaxy's unique build-a-story mechanic lets you do it your way. Impress your colleagues AND the readership with well researched and fastidiously constructed news stories. Or, just put out any old sensational tripe.

Wishlist Times & Galaxy and play the demo now:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/883230/Times__Galaxy/

And keep up to date with all the latest Times & Galaxy news here:

All aboard the Times & Galaxy’s news ship!

When it comes to design, most spaceships fall into one of two categories: ultra-futuristic—sleek, bright, and hermetically clean—or borderline derelict, made of rusting pipes, metal mesh, and duct-taped hopes.

But wander around The Scanner, Times & Galaxy’s spacefaring office (and home to its many reporters), and you’ll see wood paneling, shoe racks, and carpeted flooring. It feels more like a midcentury family home than a universe-cruising spacecraft. Which is by design.

“I don't like doing big, impersonal spaces,” art director Kate Craig says. “There's enough warehouses and big space stations done by people who love that stuff and are really interested in the industrial vibe. But there are spaceships that have more homeyness… you can see the fingerprints of the people that live there. I'm more interested in that than I am in like, how do these solar panels fit on the thing?”

Some desk design drafts: one business-focused, the other a little more… casual.

The result feels particularly lived-in, as the Scanner’s nine areas reveal much about beings that occupy them: through posters, graffiti, and passive-aggressive notes stuck on refrigerators.

Craig notes that splitting that difference between workspace and living room came through some trial and error exploration—and, importantly, by starting with a smaller area of the ship, and working outwards from there.

The games table in the bunks. Who wants to play De-risk?

“Ben [Gelinas, creative director] was like, ‘We need to start working on the newsroom immediately—it’s the most important room in the ship,’” Craig recalls. “And I said, ‘We should probably save that one.’ The very first level you make in a video game is going to be hot garbage. You figure out so much stuff and how it should look and how it should respond… So let's come back to that. Let's do the reception area first, because it's so small, and it's low stakes.”

An early draft of the ship’s reception area. Lots of seating!

From there, the rest of the Scanner found its form, amplified by the way it is inhabited, the messes it collects, and the way its corners get personalized by their regular occupants.

The Scanner’s Archives, where you can read your fellow journalists’ stories.

“Normally when you work in an environment, you're given a keyword or a vibe,” Craig continues. “The keywords for this were ‘retro futurism’ and ‘Saturday morning cartoons’ … We tried to push in that direction.”

The ship’s garden in full bloom!

Wishlist Times & Galaxy and play the demo now:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/883230/Times__Galaxy/

And keep up to date with all the latest Times & Galaxy news here:

Hey interns, have you heard the news?

The Times & Galaxy Closed Beta is now live and we're inviting YOU to participate!

Featuring the first six cycles of the game, the Times & Galaxy Closed Beta will be taking place here on Steam, and includes roughly the first third of the game. It'll take around 4-6 hours to play through, and offers plenty of replayability.

Times & Galaxy is a game all about choices. You will choose how you tackle each story, how much you explore the scene, which questions you ask in interviews, and which angles you select to write about. Sometimes your editor will even give you a choice of which assignment to take! And of course, you’ll also choose how you spend you time on the Scanner and how you act towards your colleagues in-between assignments.

It's also a game that is trying a lot of interesting and unusual things. As we come into the final stretch of development, the feedback we get from you will help us hone in on the bits that work (or don't), the bits that people like (or don't) and of course, give us a good opportunity to squish bugs and identify hardware compatibility issues before launch.

If you’ve played the demo already, the first two cycles will be familiar to you - though some updates have been made - and you’ll have four brand new cycles to experience.

Fill in the below form to apply.

✍️ https://bit.ly/TGClosedBetaP

Registrations will remain open until March 8.

The beta will close on March 11.

Once you're in and playing, we'd love you to join us in the Fellow Traveller Discord, where we'll have a dedicated section for Times & Galaxy where you can chat about the game, ask the Copychaser Games team questions, post fan art of your fave characters, and generally have a grand time. If you’re not already a member of the discord you can join by clicking the button below.



And you keep up to date with all the latest Times & Galaxy news here:

Beep boop, have we got a scoop!

Copychaser Games and Fellow Traveller will be running a Closed Beta here on Steam from February 26 until March 11 to help with editorial balancing, bug catching, and narrative polish, and we'd love to invite you, dear player, to participate.

Why? Well, Times & Galaxy is a weird game doing lots of things that haven’t been done before, and it’s really useful to get real player feedback on what works, what doesn’t, what feels good, and of course squishing bugs and ironing out hardware compatibility issues.

"But I've already played the demo" I hear you say. Well, the beta is three times larger than the demo and will features the first six cycles from the game. This is roughly the first third (!!) of the game and will take around 4-6 hours to play, with plenty of replayability. Even if you have played the demo, you'll notice some updates have been made - and you’ll have four brand new cycles to experience!

Sound like an exclusive you want to cover? Simply fill in this form to apply.

✍️ https://bit.ly/TGClosedBetaP


Registrations are open from today until March 8.

Steam keys will start being sent out from Feb 26 and the beta will end on March 11.

We'll also be expanding the Times & Galaxy channels in our Discord for the Closed Beta, including a dedicated channel for asking questions of the developer. So if you're not already a member of the Discord, follow the button below to join!



And keep up to date with all the latest Times & Galaxy news here:

Step into the boots of the galaxy's first robo reporter intern. 🤖

Meet, befriend and maybe double-cross a whole bunch of alien weirdos in this demo for Times & Galaxy.

As the new blood at the renowned regional holopaper, you'll need to write impressive (or at least marginally competent) stories that make readers and colleagues take notice. You might even get to keep your job at the end of it all! 🤷🏼

In addition to the demo, we've also got a great stream with the game's writers running throughout the event on the store page.

Head over and check it out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/883230/Times__Galaxy/

And keep up to date with all the latest Times & Galaxy news here: