Kovara: Space Colony

Four people step off a shuttle onto a planet that wasn't expecting them. There is good soil, water, all the wood you need. Someone else is out there too, and sooner or later they will come and see what you brought. The raiders arrive tomorrow. Tonight you find out if the wall holds.

You don't give orders. You set priorities.

Twelve jobs, a number from 1 to 4 for each: colonists pick their own work, but needs come first, and they eat before they sleep. Mood isn't a mystery number, it's a list you can read. “I slept on the ground.” “This place is squalid.” “I lost the person I loved.” Every colonist has their own threshold, it depends on character, and below it they break. You always know why.

Health comes apart piece by piece.

Arms, legs, eyes, organs. Wounds bleed, get infected if nobody treats them, leave scars. Lose an arm and you can have a prosthetic, if somebody built one. Whoever dies stays where they fell until you dig them a grave.

The raiders announce themselves a day ahead.

Fires to the west, fresh tracks to the north: you know which way they are coming and how many. Time enough to raise a wall, forge a knife, or decide that this time everyone stays inside. The first two are hungry men with sticks, going for the most valuable pile they can reach: the medicine, not the wood. From the second raid on there are more. Here they don't smash doors, they come back; on the next world they do, and whatever they knock down your people rebuild.

You build, you research, you keep warm.

Walls and a floor, and the room is done: the ceiling comes with the floor, you never draw it. A campfire warms whoever stands close by, and the room only a little: a hall takes a heater. Water is the only thing that runs out on its own: first you carry it by hand in cans, then you research pipes and tanks. 133 research projects across six branches, and some choices close the other road for the rest of the game.

Leaving is a decision, not a button.

With the shuttle finished you choose who boards - four seats, and there are usually more of you - and what goes in the hold: one cow eats a third of the cargo. Whoever doesn't board stays there, and the game remembers the name. On the next world nothing is handed to you: you have exactly what you loaded.

Five worlds, five different problems.

Discovery signals