Zinequest 2023 Sneak Peek

"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love"
- Carl Sagan

Hey everyone, I've got a special post for you today, a sneak peek of my next Zinequest project :D 

The game is called, For Small Creatures Such As We and is heavily inspired by Becky Chamber's Wayfarers series which is a quadrilogy of sci-fi books that focus on the bonds that we make with our found families, on the differences between species and the kindness that prevails when we respect each other. Corny, I know but I absolutely love it.

The universe in the Wayfarers series is incredibly rich and detailed because Becky Chambers spends a lot of each book fleshing out the different species and putting real genuine thought into how they think and act from a biological to societal level. And that's what I want to capture with For Small Creatures Such As We.

Design Goals

In no particular order:

1) I want this game to be capable of guiding players to create unique alien species.

2) I want this game to help develop real feeling characters

3) I want this game to be fun

How It Plays

I'm still very much in the pre-design phase where things are constantly shifting and huge parts of this may change by the time it goes to print but essentially:

You are a new captain who has just received command of their first ship with an alien crew. Your mission, inspired by the Journeys from Apawthecaria, is determined at the start of the game and gives you a good end point. Usually this will be 'deliver X to Y' or 'go to Y to perform a job' or something along those lines.

At the start of the game, you are prompted to describe the two or three crew members you have. We don't go into great depths just yet, just a visual overview that gives you an idea of what they look like, what they're wearing, and what their name and job is. This is one of the few stages of species development that can be done randomly but aspects beyond this are more guided and controlled. Think an identification guide rather than roll tables.

As the game progresses, you'll uncover aspects of their personality, culture, and biology. You'll have opportunities to discuss things with your crew members which gives you world building prompts, character creation prompts, and interpersonal stories.

As you learn more about your crew, you'll also realise that their personal needs can be affected by the systems on the ship. An amphibious crew member, for example, may need a humidifier in their workspace and quarters otherwise their Health will start to drop. Balancing the needs of your crew is a constant process and provides opportunities to consider how a species differences affect how they interact in a unified space.

Along the way you'll have to stop in at planets and space stations to refuel and buy supplies. Here, much like Apothecaria, you'll have random events that can introduce interesting new twists to the story like new crew members, debts, pets, illnesses, and more as well as providing more prompts for worldbuilding and character development.

A rough draft of a agrical (farm) planet spread.

That's about as much as I have to share at the moment. I'll make another post once I've got more to show off :)

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please ask in the comments below and I'll answer what I can.

Thanks for reading <3