What it is
A space survival and exploration roguelike where the universe runs whether you’re watching it or not. You manage a crew, explore derelict stations and planetary surfaces, make first contact with alien factions, and try not to die. The simulation handles the heavy lifting: factions fight wars, economies shift, settlements grow and collapse — all generated, all deterministic, all reactive to what you do.
The reference points are Rimworld and Cosmoteer. Grimdark survival and ship-building, with Stellaris-style ancient mysteries underneath. The design philosophy: how do we keep things feeling liveable? Which sounds at odds with the horror and psionic elements, but isn’t really. The horror is more interesting when you have something to lose.
How the simulation works
It started as a turn-based game. That didn’t last.
Once you try to simulate a full universe in a single turn — faction movement, resource extraction, NPC decisions, ship physics — you realise it’s impossible. So: bubbles of simulation fidelity. Different parts of the universe run at different tick rates. Systems without a player don’t tick at all. Why run the simulation where no one’s watching?
When you leave somewhere, we store a seed: the broad-stroke state the region was in when you departed. When you come back, we rapidly replay the world’s history from that seed. Deterministic replay means we can regenerate a plausible current state — spawn the right NPCs, trigger the right events — without ever having simulated the intervening time. Player-built structures get static storage as an escape hatch. Everything else regenerates.
The implication: you’re not the only thing out there. Shit changes while you’re gone. Don’t forget to grab the good stuff before you leave.
Where it is now
The core simulation, visual integration, and major gameplay systems are wired up and working. Settlements and interior play, fleet and faction interaction, combat, crew depth, economy and industry, astrogeology — all of it generating together. A consistency and integration audit (M26) passed over the full codebase. Release candidate work (M8) and audio polish (M25) are in progress.
The name remains unresolved.