Hey, my name is John!
Retrograde: Legends is an open world, hard sci-fi space sim set in the near future where you fly and customize realistic spacecraft, expand your fleet, trade, mine, navigate, scavenge, pirate and conquer your way through our own solar system. Learn to master ships, orbital mechanics, tactics and economics inspired by concepts from real world science as your build your own solar empire.
Four months ago, I embarked on this passion project that has now become my full-time job. I'm thrilled to talk about it and share it with other sci-fi fans and space nerds. I'm looking forward to a Steam early access release within the next year.
What is the guiding vision for Retrograde?
Retrograde is a believable, living, breathing world, full of systematic encounters, tons of replayability and deep customization. The game is a varied storytelling experience that allows you to weave your own tales about your exploits and skills in a harsh and realistically simulated solar system. I want to feel like an intrepid ice-hauling Belter captain making my way through a hostile universe or the head of a hardened Martian separatist fleet burning downwell to recapture the Red Planet.
While there are many games and stories that have inspired Retrograde, this is a unique project that combines elements of hard sci-fi, sim gameplay, and an open world economy in our own, familiar, solar system.
What inspires Retrograde?
I'm a massive fan of science fiction, especially franchises that tell great stories with consistent science-based grounding behind them like The Expanse, Delta-V: Rings of Saturn and Children of a Dead Earth. Additionally, games like Sid Meier's Pirates, Spore and the Mount and Blade series have captivated my attention for years. I aim to create similarly immersive and enduring experiences with Retrograde.
Ships
Ships in Retrograde are inspired by real life and are all about managing and taking advantage of heat and momentum. If your ship gets too hot, it breaks down. You don't slow down unless you use your engines.
Ships are highly customizable and can be outfitted for a variety of gameplay styles. Running a really hot reactor? Insert more control rods or try out bigger radiators. Need more space to carry all the rocks you've mined out in the Belt? Add some more shipping containers. Keep getting ambushed by pirates? Try a different sensor set up.
Retrograde's economy is a living, breathing entity, driven by supply and demand. The game world responds to resource availability and the distribution of vital goods, like food, water, medicine and a variety of materials needs for manufacturing.
Population centers grow, shrink or revolt based on how much food, water and medicine they are receiving. A clever captain can play the market to make a fortune or find weak spots in an opposing faction's economy to destabilize their fleets' ability to refuel, rearm or recruit by disrupting critical supply chains which connect the system's space stations.
Each station in the solar system purchases raw materials and items to manufacture goods, which are used to build or upgrade ships and are shipped around the solar system by NPC traders to be sold and used elsewhere.
If, for example, you capture a merchant vessel carrying precious metals from Ceres to Saturn, the cost of electronics in the outer planets may spike in several days as the raw materials expected to be shipped in never reached their destination. This might make it difficult for local fleets to repair their ships, forcing them to search further away for parts, sparking conflict with a neighboring faction.
This type of dynamic, systemic gameplay is fascinating to me and provides a solid base for really fun storytelling.
Characters / Factions
Characters in Retrograde are as dynamic as the world they inhabit. NPCs are procedurally generated and can form their own relationships, histories and memories, all driven by cultural traits inherited from their planet or society of origin.
You may encounter a former crew member that you fired years ago as a captain in another faction's fleet or a merchant aboard an orbital station might refuse to do business with you because of your attacks against their culture's ships.
Our solar system is also inhabited by a variety of spacefaring factions, all vying for control over the crucial resources, trade hubs and supply chains that fuel humanity's expansion across the planets. These interactions add another layer of immersion to the world of Retrograde.
Project Status
After the last four months of solo, full-time development, many of Retrogrades core mechanics are built but there's still plenty to do. Over the coming months, I'll share updates about development progress, new mechanics, content and features and insights into how the game evolves over time.
I'd love for you to join me on this journey - stay tuned for the next update and give the game a follow on Youtube here!
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