The Dating Game

Work continues on Generation Ship as I enter what I’m considering the alpha stage (but it helps not having to prove that milestone to anyone). For now I wanted to outline something that is a part of this game that people might not expect from first glance. In truth, Generation Ship has more similarities to something like The Sims than your average space-faring adventure; despite the usual implications of this setting. For me, the colony ship environment allows a closed system for the player to deal with that could almost equally be a remote village – but with the benefit of that sweet future technology.

One important system I’ve been developing recently is that of character relationships (specifically as leading to partnerships). The player will be able to arrange a date at a suitable venue between two available colonists. If a good match is chosen then we can see two characters progress through a dating period to becoming partners.

At this point the possibility of introducing ship-born colonists arrives through child birth – the only other way to increase the active population outside of the staggered process of awakening frozen colonists. I do hope to confer some other benefit to colonists in relationships as there should definitely be more to this than child birth (sexual preference is variable for one thing).

So that’s how colonists are introduced to each other, how about how players are introduced to this game… (Seamless link) I’m hoping players of this game won’t mind a little reading as I’ve started adding these tip pop-ups the first time certain systems are encountered. There might need to be just a little more hand-holding at the beginning but I will try to determine that through testing. I hope to get onto beta testing in a matter of weeks as I’m keen to get towards an initial release as soon as I can! More to come soon!