Orion’s End is a space adventure life sim, with a strong focus on adventure, exploration and forging friendships amongst the stars. After years of dreaming of travelling the spacelanes, you are finally the captain of a small space freighter. You are now free to build your fortune as a law-abiding trader or courier. On the other hand, with a few upgrades your new ship could probably pack quite a punch, so you could clean up the star systems by hunting pirates and reap the bounties available.  Alternatively, you can step outside the law and try smuggling goods or even be a pirate yourself.

However, you won’t want to spend your whole time in space. There are planets to explore, each with their own residents who you can do jobs for or even become best friends with. Some of these people might even have skills that will complement your own, and you might be able to persuade them to join your crew.

How ever you choose to live your life, be it hero, rogue or reputable businessperson, the stars will hold adventures aplenty.

PLANETSIDE

While on the planets or on board the space stations, you can buy and sell commodities, refuel, or repair and upgrade your ship. But there's more to do than that. There are many residents who have their own stories to be explored. You can talk to them, do quests for them, or give them gifts - all of which will progress (or perhaps regress) your relationships with the characters. You might even make a special friend - or maybe even one in every port. It's up to you.

Each settlement has unique activities to undertake and unique stories and locations to discover, giving you an opportunity to have further adventures: old ruins, bandit camps, abandoned mines. You need to learn about these locations through talking to residents, doing quests or exploring the zones outside the space ports.

SPACEWARD HO

Once you first take to space you will be met with a star chart with the core settled worlds. Each one has its own economy and risk level. Warp between systems and traverse the sometimes-dangerous path to the systems space port - which can be either planetside or on a space station if the planet is a less hospitable one. But prepare to defend yourself against pirates, especially in the riskier but more lucrative systems. On the other hand, if you engage in piracy yourself, the local police ships will be only happy to put an end to your illegal activities. Additionally, most systems also have an asteroid belt that needs to be successfully navigated through (never tell me the odds), and can provide some additional income from mining for rare commodities.

HOME IS WHERE YOUR SHIP IS

Your ship is your home. You can upgrade some of the systems to get better combat performance, or speed, but it is your only ship. You wouldn't trade it for all the coffee on Ryser. However, you have your living quarters on board, which you can customise to suit your style. Collect various decorations and artefacts, or a new bed. Make your home the comfiest place for you.

ECONOMY

The economy within the system is simple but dynamic. Events beyond your control can have a temporary impact on the prices in a system. A pandemic on one planet may cause an increased demand for medical supplies, while a recession on a high-tech planet could cause cheap prices for their manufactured medical supplies. You can take advantage of the situation and ferry supplies between these two planets. But these conditions are only temporary, so you need to act fast.

THE OUTER REGIONS

The outer regions of each system are worth exploring too, but it is a gamble. You might find valuable resources to mine, or an old wreckage of a cruiser to explore, or a strange but beautiful space oddity that can be scanned for research data to be sold, but be careful, because you could just easily find yourself ambushed by pirates.

CHARACTER CUSTOMISATION

The player character is completely customisable:  facial features, hair, skin colour, clothing, name and pronoun. Their custom portrait appears during dialogue sequences in the game, and the in-game character also displays the changes.

THE PEOPLE YOU MEET

There are two types of people you will meet in the game. Some of them are custom hand designed characters with unique stories to explore. As you get to know them better, and become friends, you will learn more about their stories and help them achieve their goals. You can track your relationship level as it grows.

There are hundreds of other characters to meet though. Using the same character customisation system you used to create your character, these people are also provided with their own unique appearance and name. You can also talk to them, learn about secrets within the world, and become friends with each of them if you choose to. You can track your relationship level with hundreds of characters, each one with their own personal preferences. Some like honest law-abiding travellers, while others like people who aren’t afraid to walk their own shady path. Some like the taste of exotic fruits, while others collect artworks from distant world. You need to uncover what each one of them likes if you are going to win them over.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay in Orion's End is designed to be very diverse but uncomplicated, incorporating gameplay from retro games but with more modern influences. Shoot 'em up gameplay in space, and shoot outs on planets. Minigames at settlements, and life sim social encounters with the local residents. All of the mechanics are designed to be simple enough to just pick up and play. There's no steep learning curves or complicated systems. There are lots of things to do, but not all of them are necessary to enjoy the game. Do what you enjoy doing most.

THE DEVELOPER

Hi, I’m Dave Stein, the solo developer or Orion’s End. I’ve been working on the game since 2022. The game was initially inspired by classic games from the 80s and 90s and was an attempt to combine various minigames into one cohesive whole. Games like the original Elite, Space Invaders, Spy Hunter, and Berzerk!. Orion’s End began as super low resolution that harked back to retro game consols like the Atari 2600. However, as the game concept grew, my ideas changed and so did the game. It incorporated many other ideas, the resolution of the graphics was upscaled twice and it developed it’s own identity. While I say I’m a solo developer, I must also acknowledge the support and encouragement I’ve received from my family, who have helped me in numerous ways, such as being a sounding board for ideas, providing gameplay testing and providing their own creative ideas that I’ve incorporated into the game and its world.

WHEN WILL IT BE RELEASED?

That’s a tough question, and it doesn’t have an easy answer. However, my current goal is to complete a playable demo and make it available some time in 2025. Stay tuned, and I’ll update you as this gets closer.