Pull of the Void

Synopsis:

The wonders of space have faded into the past. Capitalism has infected any hopes humanity had for the final frontier, and you are stuck, trapped alone in a freighter vessel moving cargo between the inner five planets of the solar system. You have one goal: make enough credits to buy a landing pass to go home, before the cruel coldness of entropy claims you.

Pull of the Void is a game built to capture what it might really be like to captain a ship through the solar system, all by yourself. You fly a Tardigrade-Class Freighter Vessel, slowly building credits to hopefully buy a landing pass to return to Earth. You are a contract worker, taking jobs wherever you can find them, scraping desperately by as the cold reality of space fights you back. There is no combat. Your enemy is entropy.

You have to keep your ship in good repair and keep yourself in good health as you travel between stations in orbit of the first five planets of our solar system. You will need to jump over hurdles such as engine fires, hull breaches, space pirates trying to steal your valuable cargo, and The Feds always on the lookout for criminal activity, which you may need to partake in just to survive.

Gameplay:

Pull of the Void is almost turn based, where your turns are days. Each day, you will wake up to some number of events. These events can range from nothing to your ship's central capacitor burning out to space pirates stopping you mid voyage to try to steal your cargo. Your goal is to determine what is best to do each day to progress towards making enough money to get back to Earth. There is rarely only one solution to a problem. Traveling between stations to move cargo around for your jobs takes a set number of days, so longer voyages invoke more risk to your journey through the cosmos. If you can't find any good jobs, you can sleep and hope for better jobs the next day.

You experience space through the consoles of your ship, and each console has a specific function to aid you in your voyage.

The Cockpit:

Navigation - Choose where to go, see where you are
Communications - Take jobs, contact your doctor, contact central office, deploy distress beacon when stranded, and talk to ships that have stopped you.
Cargo Manifest - View, ditch, and deliver cargo
Ship Status - Repair ship hull, buy fuel, upgrade fuel efficiency

Habitat Suite:

Replicator - Print parts to repair your ship, only one credit each
Carbon Filter - Regulates atmosphere in the ship
Capacitor - Regulates all power to the ship
Life Support - Console that allows you to regenerate atmosphere in your ship, if it's in good enough repair.

Difficulties:

Normal - this is the difficulty the game was balanced for. This is built so you can feasibly complete a run in about an hour, maybe two if things don't go well for you.

Capitalist Hellscape - Almost everything costs twice as much. The only things that don't are fuel and replicated ship parts. You will be required to make tough choices, like whether or not to heal before you embark on a voyage, which costs credits, a precious resource that you need to collect in order to make meaningful progress in the game.

Extra Notes:

You can hit select to save and quit, but your save gets deleted when you die or beat the game. Your "score," if you can consider one, is how few days it takes you to complete the game.

Fire requires fuel to burn. The pumps moving fuel to your engine require power to operate. That same power maintains atmosphere on your ship. Engine fires can be subdued without ever entering the engine room, but there are always trade offs. Consider your options carefully.

If you're playing the game in retroarch, I highly recommend using the color palette "Moonlight Visions" for the game. It's the color palette I used for all of my play testing and as far as I'm concerned it's the official color scheme for the game.

Credits:

Music and Sound - Beatscribe

Everything else - zella