Sunless Skies
2019
- role-playing (rpg)
- adventure
- indie
- fantasy
- science fiction
- horror
- historical
- single player
The story
SAIL THE STARS. BETRAY YOUR QUEEN. MURDER A SUN. Set a course for the heavens in your steam locomotive! Lose yourself in a changing universe where even time can be bought. A Victorian Gothic adventure for PC, Mac and Linux. It is the dawn of the 20th century, and the British Empire has taken to the stars! As the captain of a spacefaring locomotive you’ll behold wonders and battle cosmic abominations in the heavens. The stars are alive. They are the Judgements: vast intelligences that govern all things. But they are dying. One by one, something is snuffing them out, leaving their thrones empty. Unfettered by trivial things like gravity, the Empire’s ambition is savage. They have built a new Sun. The Empress reigns from the Throne of Hours, which gives her control over time. Your Captain and crew must carve out a life between the stars. Will you support her majesty and the establishment, or the working class rebels who yearn for freedom from the Workworlds? Learn who you are, in the dark. Die, and leave the world the way you want it for your successor…
What it’s like
Dark, starlit space rendered in painterly Victorian Gothic: inky voids dotted with glowing nebulae, brass-and-coal steam locomotives, and ornate port cities lit by gaslamps and lurid cosmic light. The art direction leans on ink-washed illustration and sepia-toned interfaces, with dense hand-lettered text that reads like a leather-bound journal. Sound is largely a moody, low-key score of strings and clockwork ticks with long stretches of quiet hum, and the rattle of the train is the constant companion. Vibe: melancholic, eerie, quietly grand, with a sense of wonder edged by dread. It suits a rainy evening alone, a late-night session with headphones, or a long stretch of unhurried exploration. Pacing is slow and deliberate, driven by trade, travel and choice rather than action; each voyage is a sequence of small decisions, and the captain's arc is one of shifting loyalties in a dying universe. Violence is present, mostly through ship-to-ship and cosmic-monster combat and some grim, mournful imagery, but it is not gory and rarely lingers on the body. Death is a recurring mechanic with a lighthearted, bittersweet framing. Best for players who want an atmospheric, text-heavy roleplaying journey, fans of steampunk, gothic fantasy and roguelike persistence who enjoy reading as much as steering.
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