Finding Astraios
Finding Astraios is about a character on a suicide mission to confirm if a distant planet, Astraios, could be humanity’s next home as Earth declines. The journey goes wrong when they get trapped near a black hole, and each death resets them to the moment they first entered it. The player has to escape the death loop, uncovering memories of the character’s past on Earth, their mission, and a disturbing legend of a galactic monster that torments its prey. By the end, it’s left unclear if the character has gone mad or if the myth is real, creating an eerie, unresolved feeling as they wander the ship forever.
The game is mainly focused around this loop where the player keeps on dying whilst trying to get out of the blackhole. The game will consist of various trial and error as the player keeps on dying, the option to repeat the mission will still be there so the player should learn from previous deaths that it will not work and try something else. I hope to make the deaths unexpected errors and sudden, like a jump-scare, this paired with the eerie atmosphere around the spaceship will provide a scary experience.
During these tasks to escape the player will unravel clues and information based around the character they are playing. Eventually revealing the mission the character was previously on and why he/ she was on a spaceship by themselves.
Past
The information that will get revealed will consist of past videos back on Earth ranging from family goodbyes to mission briefs. The player will understand that they have been sent on a suicide mission to find Astraios a planet with potential to colonise, due to the dying Earth. this is much like the well known Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar. Other memories reveal important information such as astronomers back on earth arguing about Astraios, one side will be against the colonisation of this planet due to the fact that it is too strange and unknown. Whilst the other will argue for its colonisation due to its obvious similar earth aspects.
Apart from memories and videos I also hope to reveal some lore through notes documents and books around the ship, most this lore will be about ‘Astraeus’ a methodical greek god. The information that will get shown is on how this god would lure all sorts of beings and devour them, finding unsettling drawings and descriptions.
Ending
The ending won’t be a clear outcome, it will be more like a plot twist with different interpretations. As the story progresses and after dying so many times, running out of tasks/ escape possibilities the character will start hallucinating and hearing things. This includes hearing negative comments like ‘you will never get out’ all the way to seeing a massive snake coiled around the black hole.
The fixed ending is that the player will never get out and is destined to loop each time he/ she dies, however it is open to interpretation. One is that due to the various deaths the character has been severely mentally traumatised and is suffering from hallucinations.
Whilst the other is the belief that Astraeus is a real god that is terrorising him and has led him there meaning that the planet Astraios never existed. In this interpretation the snake coiled around the blackhole would be Astraeus.
Hidden Meaning
Once the player has completed all the missions the game won’t stop the player will be left to aimlessly wonder the ship and interact with it. The ship will have some mini games to interact with.
Nihilism and existentialism are the two main themes a wanted to explore through my game, although they both will be constantly hinted along the game through the ships structure and lighting. However I also wanted to incorporate their differences, where nihilism is a belief in no meaning and existentialism is to create meaning. I thought that creating a ending where all is meaningless is where those two could be shown best, so after the player realises that the whole play through was meaningless the player will get to either stop playing or carry on exploring the ship and interact with it through small scale experiences.