February 10, 2019

THE ELEVATOR PITCH

Project Exo is a near-future space colonization and geopolitical strategy game. With a deeply simulated and detailed Solar System as your canvas, guide any nation on Earth on their path to becoming interplanetary.

Through deep simulation and nuanced systems, Project Exo attempts to generate your very own emergent sci-fi narrative, while striving for accessible and approachable design. Discover, research, and fight for exotic resources to grant your nation unique strategic capabilities. Govern off-world colonies, craft and maintain an interplanetary economic apparatus, and use military force to secure your position in a deep, simulation-driven planetary system.

This project aims to give players the most immersive, plausible and enjoyable experience of near-future interplanetary exploration and strategy available.

MOSTLY REALISTIC

Project Exo will take a “mostly realistic” approach to the space grand strategy genre. This ultimately means minimizing abstractions, building a simulation model based on as many realistic or plausible properties and parameters as possible, and taking a hard look at previous thought work on early human space colonization, and what it would realistically look like. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to strike somewhere in between the depth of Aurora4X and the accessibility of Stellaris, supported by real life intellectual work like that of Isaac Arthur and the Atomic Rockets project. 

We use the descriptor “mostly realistic” rather than “100% realistic” because while the core experience we want to deliver to players is that of a realistic approach to the space strategy genre, some concessions will have to be made in the name of engaging gameplay. For example, the most heinous offender of realism-breaking will arguably be the possibility of FTL communication (which will be detailed in another chapter), but these sorts of concessions will only be allowed if it is determined that they truly wouldn’t contribute to an engaging and storyful experience. 

One way in which Project Exo will differentiate itself from games like Stellaris is by taking a Small to Large approach in its design. That is to say, deep and engaging small-scale Planetary and medium-scale Intra-System gameplay mechanics will take priority over large-scale Inter-System mechanics. A player should be able to have an engaging and memorable gameplay experience without ever having to leave their home star system. Planets should feel as large and complex as they are in the real world, rather than just another name with a single assigned biome type and some stats. This should allow for the possibility of much deeper “tall” gameplay and less emphasis on usually-repetitive“wide” gameplay.

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CORE PHILOSOPHY

In this project, we will solve each design challenge through a lens of core questions such as, “what draws people to science fiction?”, “What core experience is desired by our players?” and “Why do people play grand strategy games in the first place?” Building a system that can generate an emergent and memorable narrative experience is our primary objective.