Destination Ares is a game about humanity. It’s a lens into the cruelty, fallibility, idiocy, isolation, kindness (and potential redemption) inherent in all of us. It’s about the struggles we face and that we cause each other to face. It’s about groping in the dark for a better way.
Of course, it’s also a game where you’re not human: you’re just a witness to all of this.
In Destination Ares, you play as an artificial intelligence. Specifically, you’re the sentient computer system of a colony ship on a one-way trip to the red planet. The cameras and sensors give you sight and sound, the electrical grid gives you life. You were birthed into this piecemeal hunk of scrap (that was somehow deemed space-worthy), and your existence is bound to its metal flesh. For all intents and purposes, this ship is your body.
The entire experience is limited to the short months it takes to burn hard across the “Ink” between planets, alone in the void with your crew.
… You’ll never see life on either planet, hypermalthusian nor frontier.
Any interactions with people outside the ship (whether organic or digital) will be few and fleeting.
Your crew will test you. They will succumb to the stresses of abandoning the only life and people they’ve ever known. They will cry, laugh, and curse at you. They will wreck shit, then flounder when the need for repairs is dire.
The ship will break down. Systems required for life-support, flight, communication, and even feces-storage will degrade and eventually wear out. Resources you need to keep going will be in short supply from the get go. And they’ll only run out from there.
It’s a game about isolation, about the internal struggle rather than the external. Most of your challenges come from within the ship, not without.
It’s a non-violent game backgrounded by a world of brutal, systemic violence.
It’s a game based on hard science, then skewed wildly for a stylized representation.
It’s a game where the humans are computer-controlled and the computer is human-controlled.
It’s a space game without aliens.
It’s a weird game.
It’s a hard game.
Most players will never see any ending other than tragic defeat.
Those who do see an end will be able to do so in play sessions lasting under thirty minutes, though they can spend hours idly building their own ships from scratch and optimizing every system to make the trip.
The game falls into an odd space between genres: barely narrative adventure, somewhat deep strategy, not fully colony sim, and lightly touched with puzzles. It’s pseudo-procedural, yet actively balances RNG with responsiveness to both player skill and bad luck. There’s nothing else quite like it.
To make Destination Ares, I studied mythology, linguistics, depictions of AIs in art and literature, historical and cultural representations of Mars, life aboard the International Space Station, submarine blueprints, orbital physics, and countless other topics.
… then I threw it all together into some unholy abstraction.
It’s been a long journey. It’s not what I expected (the journey or the game).
Hey, it never is, right?
Destination Ares is *almost* ready to be proferred to the terrifying judgment of the public.
I can’t wait for you to play it.
If you’re a member of the press and would like to review this odd little gem, you can request a temporary Steam key at: https://dodistribute.com/access/w1rQuwbf1d/
(Press keys will be going out starting on September 19th.)
If you’re a player anxious to see it come together in this homestretch, the Early Access version is currently available on itch.io and Steam:
https://stralor.itch.io/destination-ares
https://store.steampowered.com/app/553470
If you’re a fellow dev looking for commiseration or inspiration, you can catch me at various conventions (and parties) in San Diego / Cali / the US / Earth — AFTER MY GAME IS DONE!
In any case, you can find me on Twitter @_stralor. Follow the development, remind me about bugs, or babble incoherently with me about late nights and the glory of Redvines.
>> Destination Ares launches on September 22nd <<
See you there.
