Their Shadows Awaken

This is a version of the game made in 72 hours. It is NOT complete by any means, but IS playable. All you need is a deck of cards, a piece of paper and pen(cil), and the Star Chart printed (or written on digitally in like Paint) to play.

Some of the things mentioned below don't exist yet, like upgrading the ship or de-aging yourself.

You're engineer # 7253, one of 100 engineers aboard SFS Mammoth. As the ship takes 500 years to reach its destination, one engineer needs to be awake at all times in case they're needed. You're that engineer! You're approximately 280 years into the journey, which means you have over 200 years left. Good luck surviving that! But at least any money you earn will be sent to your dependents. Or their dependents. Or their dependents' dependents' dependents. It's been a long time.

The job is super boring and lonely. But one day you realize that if you teleport something SUPER FAST for a while, it de-ages! It requires a LOT of energy, but if you can gather enough energy, you can de-age yourself over and over, surviving the entire journey!!!!

Their Shadows Awaken follows engineer # 7253 (and any subsequent engineers if that one dies) as you explore space, playing four different minigames with the deck of cards, deal with random events, collect game-altering relics, and struggle to survive as long as you can. Or sacrifice yourself and use that energy to better the ship, so the next engineer can maybe survive the journey!

Current State of the Game

As of now, there are a few major things still left to do before this is even a full prototype:

• Solar Charts: the game will have nine maps, and there's currently one: the "tutorial" area.
• De-Aging and Engineering: the game will have the ability to spend energy to de-age yourself and upgrade different aspects of the ship. None of those exist yet.
• Interstellar Inventory shopping: the eight maps beyond the tutorial area will have a singular inventory, and you'll draw cards to see what's available to purchase. The tutorial area only has one shop with a fixed inventory, 
• Express Start: this DOES exist in the game as it is, but it's pointless as it skips the tutorial area, which is the only area so far 🤣 

Coming... Soon?

Honestly, I don't know lol. I'm really excited about this game, but it's one that will take a lot of playtesting, iterating, and polishing. It's also now the end of June 2024 and we're a couple of days from Mini Zine July 2024, so it'll be over a month before I can get to this. 

And with my backlog of incomplete games, I really need to start finishing things. I'm not sure where this falls into that backlog priority-wise. But, seriously, I've always wanted to make a roguelike and I just started enjoying the bones of this one, so I really do want to work on it more! 

Honestly, if you want to see more of this game, let me know! I know it's selfish, but knowing other people are interested in a game is inspiring, and will help me figure out which game to work on next! It's not guaranteed: if 100 people tell me they want me to make this game next and I sit down to work on it and go "meh I don't feel like it", I won't lol. But still. 

Anyone who purchases the game for any amount of money will get the full version when it is released. But again, that may NEVER HAPPEN, so don't purchase it and then get impatient about it lol