It’s a text-based interactive novel set in a future where corporations rival governments, and Dynasty is the biggest of them all. You start with almost nothing and work your way up to captain of your own ship, with a crew and an AI companion. Along the way you pick up jobs, make enemies, fight ship-to-ship battles and decide which side you’re on as the solar system heads toward war.

It’s entirely text, with no animations or sound effects, and your choices drive the story.

Over 500,000 words. The main campaign runs ten chapters, and one playthrough won’t show you everything. Two chapters are optional, and the story branches in the middle, so different runs can follow different routes.

Philip Kempton, author of Life of a Mercenary. It’s written in ChoiceScript, the same engine Choice of Games and Hosted Games titles use.

TBD (still in development)

Yes. You choose your captain’s name, gender, background and where they grew up. Those early answers shape your starting skills, and the story refers back to some of them later.

Yes, both. You also choose your AI’s pronouns.

Your captain has twelve skills, covering everything from piloting and engineering to leadership, science and talking your way out of trouble. Skills go up to 10. Many choices check a skill, and some options only appear if you have the skill they call for. When that happens, the requirement is shown in the option text so you know why you can’t take it.

You earn experience (XP) throughout the game and spend it to raise your skills.

Yes. Your actions push your captain toward light or dark, and the story keeps track. The game never tells you whether a choice was “right.” You see what happens and live with it.

Four:

• Story Mode: for readers who mainly want the story. You get a large number of checkpoint loads, so mistakes are easy to undo.
• Easy: combat is forgiving. A reasonable captain should get through.
• Normal: an unprepared captain will lose fights about half the time. Planning ahead pays off.
• Hard: you need to prepare. Your build, your ship and your crew all matter. Training skills from the stats screen isn’t available on Hard.

Yes. The game checkpoints at the start of each chapter, and save rooms throughout the story let you save manually under your own name. Loading a save costs a checkpoint token. How many tokens you start with depends on your difficulty, and Story Mode has plenty.

You can die. When you do, you can restart, load your last save (if you have tokens left) or end the run there.

Ship battles are turn-based. You choose what to fire, where to send power and when to fall back. Different weapons do better against shields or hull, missiles run out, and your crew and skills affect how well you fight. There are also on-foot fights where your personal gear and abilities come into play.

Yes. Shipyards sell upgrades to your ship’s main systems, plus weapons, cargo space and missiles. Upgrades are expensive, so you’ll be choosing where your credits go.

Yes. You can buy and sell cargo, pick up legal and not-so-legal jobs and work on your reputation with various factions. Who you’ve helped or crossed changes how people treat you later.

Yes. You hire one crew member per role (pilot, weapons, engineering, science and more), and some roles have more than one candidate. Each crew member has their own story, and many have a personal quest.

Yes. Crew remember how you treat them and how you treat others. If you keep crossing someone, they’ll tell you, then warn you, and eventually they may walk off at the next port. It never happens without warning, and it’s possible to earn their loyalty.

Yes, eight in total, including your ship’s AI. Most can be romanced by a captain of any gender, and one is available only to female captains. Romance can be casual or committed. A committed relationship with another human crew member is exclusive.

Every romantic option is labeled, for example (Flirt) or (Romance), so you won’t start a romance by accident. Declining is always an option and doesn’t cost you anything you’ve already earned.

Yes. You can switch romance off at the start of the game, and every romance option will be hidden for that playthrough.

Yes. How the war ends, who survives, who stays with you and what kind of captain you became are all decided by your choices. The ending finishes with a scorecard summarizing your run.

We think so. Two chapters are optional, the mid-game route splits, crew and romance outcomes vary a lot, and some content unlocks only after you’ve finished the campaign once.

Yes, 49 of them, and some are hidden.

The main menu has three extra modes:

• A Disturbance in Sector 17: a standalone side story about a different, earlier captain.
• The Last Stand of Mars: a survival challenge where you hold off wave after wave of attackers. Clearing wave 10 on Hard takes a very good build.
• Battle Simulator: practice fights to learn the combat system.