Explore a procedurally generated galaxy where every star system is a subreddit and every mission is a post, all to uncover why civilizations vanish.
This is a sci-fi squad-management RPG with idle and management elements. Players command a starship, recruiting a diverse crew to explore a vast galaxy. Each star system is procedurally generated from a subreddit, and "Anomalies" (missions) are generated from posts within that subreddit. The overarching goal is to gather "Echoes" of lost civilizations and piece together the mystery of the Great Filter.
- Gacha: Players use "Resonance Beacons" to "Answer Distress Calls," which is the gacha pull for new Crew Members from across the galaxy.
- Squad-Management: Assemble an "Away Team" of 4 Crew Members for missions. Balance roles like Scientist, Engineer, Marine, and Diplomat for different challenges.
- Tactical: Turn-based tactical combat on planetary surfaces or derelict ships. Positional strategy and synergistic crew abilities are key to overcoming alien threats.
- Idle: While offline, your starship's "Fabrication Bay" refines raw materials gathered on missions into "Alloys" and "Composites," essential for upgrades.
- Management: Upgrade your starship's systems: improve the Bridge for better mission scanning, the Medbay to heal crew faster, and the Engines to travel between star systems more efficiently.
- Rarity-System: Crew Members and Ship Modules have 5 tiers: Recruit (Common), Specialist (Rare), Veteran (Epic), Elite (Legendary), Prodigy (Mythic).
- Procedural Generation: The entire galaxy map is generated, with subreddits as star systems. The subreddit's theme determines planet types (e.g., r/natureisfuckinglit generates lush jungle worlds). Posts generate mission layouts and objectives.
- Events: "Supernova Flares" (a subreddit becoming a default) highlight a system for a week, boosting rewards and spawning unique missions. "First Contact" events are triggered by the creation of a new, rapidly growing subreddit.
- AI: An AI "Ship Log" analyzes player actions and suggests unexplored systems or mission types that align with their squad's strengths. The AI controlling enemy aliens in tactical combat adapts its tactics based on the player's strategy.
- ElevenLabs Audio: The ship's AI computer (a la HAL 9000 or GLaDOS) provides mission briefings and system status updates with TTS. Crew members have unique, procedurally generated barks based on their species and the mission's keywords.
- Reddit Community: The game is a grand-scale celebration of the diversity of Reddit's communities, turning each one into a unique star system to be explored and appreciated.
- Live-API: Monitors for new stickied posts by moderators in explored systems. A new sticky triggers an immediate, high-priority "Directive" mission for the player, issued by the "system government."
- Player travels to a star system (subreddit).
- Player accepts a mission (post) and assembles an Away Team.
- Player completes the mission through turn-based tactical gameplay, earning resources and "Echoes."
- Player uses resources to upgrade their ship (Management) and answer Distress Calls for new crew (Gacha).
- Player uses Echoes to unlock pieces of the central narrative.
- Crew Progression: Crew Members earn EXP, level up, and unlock new tactical abilities.
- Starship Blueprint: A deep tech tree for unlocking new ship modules and global bonuses.
- Galactic Codex: An encyclopedia of all discovered star systems, planets, alien species, and Echoes. Completing entries provides permanent buffs.
- Resource Economy: A multi-tiered resource system (raw materials, refined alloys, exotic particles) fuels all progression.
- Tiers: Recruit (Common), Specialist (Rare), Veteran (Epic), Elite (Legendary), Prodigy (Mythic).
- Rates: Common: 58%, Rare: 28%, Epic: 10%, Legendary: 3.5%, Mythic: 0.5%.
- Pity System: Guaranteed Epic crew every 40 calls, guaranteed Legendary every 120.
- Dupilicates: Duplicate crew members provide "Service Records," which can be used to promote existing crew members to a higher rarity tier.
- Non-Predatory: Gacha is fueled by earnable in-game resources. No direct power purchasing.
Missions take place on a hex grid. The 4-person Away Team faces off against procedurally generated alien creatures or rogue drones. The tactical depth comes from positioning (flanking, cover), managing ability cooldowns, and exploiting elemental weaknesses. A Scientist might debuff an enemy's armor, setting them up for a high-damage shot from a Marine. Enemy AI will focus fire on exposed units and use environmental hazards.
Active tactical missions are the source of raw materials. These materials are fed into the ship's Fabrication Bay, which works idly to refine them. The refined materials are then used in the Management layer to upgrade ship systems. Upgrading the "Long-Range Scanners" might reveal rare resource nodes during missions, creating a loop where active play feeds idle progress, which in turn enhances active play.
- Galaxy: A star map where each node is a major SFW subreddit. The distance between nodes is based on subreddit topic similarity.
- Star Systems: A subreddit's content determines its planets. r/art generates visually stunning worlds, r/mechanicalkeyboards generates metallic, geometric planets.
- Missions: A post's title becomes the mission name ("Mission: Investigate the strange monolith"). The flair determines the objective (e.g., 'Image' flair = 'Scan Anomaly', 'Discussion' flair = 'Diplomacy Check'). The number of comments determines mission length and enemy density.
- Daily Patrol: Standard daily missions with bonus rewards.
- Wormhole Anomaly (Weekly): A temporary connection opens between two distant, unrelated star systems (subreddits), creating unique crossover missions with hybrid enemies.
- First Contact (Dynamic): When a brand new SFW subreddit is created and hits 1,000 members, it appears on the galaxy map as an "Unidentified System." The first players to explore it get massive discovery bonuses.
- AI Mission Director: Curates the available missions within a star system, ensuring variety and preventing repetition. It will offer missions that challenge the player's current squad composition to encourage experimentation.
- Adaptive Enemy AI: The AI controlling alien creatures learns from the player's tactics. If the player consistently uses a specific combo, the AI will begin to generate enemies with resistances or abilities that counter it.
- Ship AI: A calm, professional TTS voice provides all exposition and UI narration ("Entering the r/space system. Scanners detect multiple anomalies."). The voice's personality can be customized.
- Crew Barks: During combat, crew members call out actions. The text is a template filled with keywords from the mission/subreddit ("Scanning the 'nebula' anomaly for the r/space mission!").
- Codex Entries: When a new discovery is made, the Ship AI reads the generated lore entry aloud.
- Caching: All Ship AI lines for standard UI are pre-generated. Dynamic lines (mission briefings) are generated once and cached.
- Core Value: Transforms the entirety of Reddit into a grand, explorable sci-fi universe. It encourages discovery and provides a new context for appreciating the vast diversity of communities on the platform. Targets a wide range of SFW subreddits.
- Live-API Usage: Monitors the live feed of new posts in the player's current star system. A new post with a high upvote velocity (e.g., >100 upvotes in 5 minutes) will immediately appear on the player's scanner as a fleeting "Unstable Anomaly" mission with a short expiration timer and extremely high rewards.
- Safety: A strict whitelist of SFW subreddits is used to generate the galaxy. All text from titles is filtered before being used in-game. The sci-fi abstraction layer helps to sanitize potentially problematic content.
- Meaningful API Usage: The game's entire world, content, and mission structure are derived directly from the subreddit ecosystem.
- User Value: Offers a majestic sense of exploration and discovery, reframing Reddit as a galaxy of unique cultures to visit and understand.
- Policy Compliance: Adheres to all platform policies, using a whitelist of SFW communities.
- No Scraping: Uses only official APIs.
- OAuth & Rate Limits: Standard secure implementation with a backend designed to manage API calls efficiently.
- Transparent Data Handling: Clearly states that public subreddit and post data is used to procedurally generate the game world.
- No Mandatory Payments: The full game experience is available for free.
- Content Moderation: Whitelist of SFW subreddits and keyword filtering on all generated text.
- Auditability: Server logs are maintained.
- A small, pre-set galaxy of 10 star systems (subreddits).
- Core loop: travel, accept mission, tactical combat.
- Squad of 2 crew members.
- 5 unique crew members to recruit (Gacha).
- 1 ship upgrade path.
- 1 enemy type in tactical combat.
- ElevenLabs for the Ship AI voice.
- Procedurally generated galaxy map.
- Live-API integration for "Unstable Anomaly" missions.
- Idle resource generation system.
- Crew progression with leveling.
To install dependencies:
bun installTo run:
bun run index.ts