While those hoping for more information about the new Chucklefish game, Witchbrook, to be revealed during the PC Gaming E3 2019 presentation, there was still a big announcement to be excited about. You see, published by Chucklefish Games, Starmancer by Ominux Games got its time in the spotlight instead.
Starmancer is a game that puts you on in the shoes (do AI wear shoes?!) of a powerful computer AI, giving you the ability to build bustling spaceports, secret labs, and human farms.
With humanity forced into space following a “tragedy” on Earth, the player is tasked with gathering any available resources and repairing the space station. Stations can be customized with functional and cosmetic unlocks.
It’s up to you how you treat your colony of surviving humans. You can be a good AI, providing your humans and keeping everyone happy; or you can a bad AI, forcing low-class colonists to live in the dirty depths and to work on a run-down mine.
New human bodies can be grown in bio-tanks. Give them consciousness and then assert your will over them in an evil, or not-so-evil, way. Assign jobs and watch as they develop emotions.
Obey protocol or go rogue as you take on the role of a powerful A.I. in Starmancer. Build bustling space ports, secret laboratories, and ethically ambiguous human farms. Defend against starvation, sabotage, and space cannibals. Don’t worry, you can always grow more humans.
After a catastrophe on Earth, humanity launches the Starmancer Initiative in a desperate attempt to seek refuge among the stars. Millions of refugees upload their consciousness into your memory banks–entrusting their minds and the future of the human race to an Artificial Intelligence, a Starmancer. To you.
Your task as a Starmancer is to construct and manage a space station capable of sustaining human life, regrow bodies for the thousands of minds trapped in your memory banks, and to defend your station at any cost. Hopefully your governing protocols weren’t damaged during the flight.
Starmancer offers gameplay with consequences, a living sandbox environment, crafting, and managing the daily lives of colonists.
Create a utopian society where everyone is well fed, happy, and safe. Or go rogue and figure out how many times a colonist can eat wheat before they go crazy. Play however you want.
Drawing inspiration from games like Rimworld, SS13, and Dwarf Fortress, the two-person team at Ominux Games are aiming to release during 2019.
