Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-playing Game Early Access Preview
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Introduction
Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-playing Game launched into early access on April 6, 2021. Developed by Iron Tower Studio, the team behind The Age of Decadence and its tactical spin-off Dungeon Rats, Colony Ship combines some of the mechanics and design principles present in those earlier games with a number of fresh ideas and a gritty sci-fi setting.
According to the developers, the game will properly set out for the stars in about a year and a half, while for the time being, we’re free to explore its first chapter and familiarize ourselves with its many systems. This is exactly what we did. And now, you can read our preview below to find out why you should be excited about Iron Tower’s latest project.
Early Impressions
Iron Tower’s previous big RPG, The Age of Decadence, was positioned as this post-post-apocalyptic Fallout-inspired game with an Ancient Roman coat of paint. But it was much more than that. It had fresh ideas, a strong uncompromising vision, a great story you had to work to uncover, and a fair amount of challenge. Basically, it was everything I want out of an RPG.
However, it’s important to note that I have a rather interesting relationship with that game. Way back in the day, I tried the free demo and found it clunky, slow, and downright boring. This led to some confusion on my part when The Age of Decadence finally launched and swiftly gained a cult following. I simply couldn’t believe people were enjoying that clunky mess. I had to see for myself.
I went in with the lowest of expectations, yet even so, by the time I finished my first playthrough, I already knew I had just experienced something special. Then later, I also quite enjoyed Dungeon Rats that refined Iron Tower’s signature turn-based combat system and introduced NPC companions into the mix.
And this brings us to Colony Ship and its early access release. I jumped on the first chance to play it but didn't expect much. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised. The initial early access build is already very much playable and quite fun. So, let’s take a closer look at what Colony Ship’s first chapter has to offer.
Let’s start with the setting. Colony Ship takes the idea of space as the final frontier and runs with it. Basically, at some point in the future, a Christian sect decides to leave Earth and its many problems behind. To that end, they turn a freighter into a generational colony ship with the intention of eventually colonizing some distant world.
On the way there, things go terribly wrong, a big mutiny happens, and once the dust settles, three new factions rise to prominence - one that’s all about freedom and anarchy, one that wants to return some semblance of order to the ship, and one that doesn’t care about the petty squabbles and just wants to refocus on the ship’s original religious mission. Naturally, all three also want to be making a mint while they’re espousing their virtues.
Lacking a clear chain of command, the ship comes into disrepair, countless sub-factions, interest groups, and gangs form, and resources begin growing scarce. This is where you come in as a regular nobody stuck on the ship without a chance to see either Earth or the planet of your destination.
Right after you create your character, you’re treated to several paragraphs of introductory text and a few questions that can help you determine your character’s personal beliefs and goals.
But let’s go back for a moment. Creating your character is a pretty involved process here, as you might expect from an Iron Tower game. You start by distributing a bunch of stat points. The game’s six attributes are pretty standard and do what you would expect them to do.
Then, you need to pick a feat, and these tend to be pretty impactful across the board. My only complaint there is that most of the currently available feats are combat-oriented. I would’ve liked there to be more stealth-related, utility, and social options.
Finally, we have skills. And this is a big one. One of my biggest gripes with The Age of Decadence was its skill system that encouraged hoarding skill points until you found a skill check worthy of an investment. Colony Ship fixes this issue by adopting a learn-by-doing system.
Usually, I don’t really like systems like this as they tend to allow you to eventually master everything by ensuring you have enough filler content to hone those skills of yours. Colony Ship, on the other hand, stays true to its hand-crafted, no trash encounters approach, which results in an interesting take on a learn-by-doing system.
Initially, it may feel stifling, but it doesn’t take long to figure out how the game works and how you should be rolling your characters if you want to succeed at certain things. It becomes this addicting game of finding the right line. You stumble about, fail a lot and run into dead ends until things finally click and you begin passing skill checks and making progress.
And the best part here is that this line greatly depends on the build you’re running. I beat the currently available content twice and experimented with a couple of other builds on top of that, and every time the order of quests and encounters was different. What’s easy for a diplomat is difficult for a sharpshooter and vice versa.
Moreover, just like in Dungeon Rats, you’ll be able to recruit up to three companions, which really smoothens out the game’s difficulty curve. If your character isn’t the best fighter, your companions can pick up the slack. Alternatively, your companions can help you pass certain skill checks provided their own skills and stats are high enough.
This results in a much more player-friendly experience than what we had in The Age of Decadence. This time around, you’ll have to try to create a busted character. This, of course, doesn’t mean the game is a complete cakewalk. You’ll have plenty of challenging fights, tricky encounters, and tough choices ahead of you.
And here, it’s important to note that the game not only constantly tracks your character’s actions, beliefs, and faction ties, it also has a window for personal reputation. Win enough battles, and your character will be known as a great warrior, allowing you to throw your weight around. But, avoid those very same fights, and you’ll become a famed diplomat, which will make people more likely to listen to you. There’s always a balancing act between what you’re capable of and what’s the best way forward for the character you have in mind.
At the same time, your companions have their own beliefs and will occasionally voice them, prompting you to choose a particular course of action or risk alienating your friends.
Now, without going too deep into it on account of this being a preview of an early version, Colony Ship’s combat is turn-based and resembles a more refined version of Dungeon Rats, but with firearms, energy weapons, grenades, and handy gadgets like energy shields and distortion fields that make you harder to hit and zap anyone who tries to attack you. The weapons at your disposal all have a variety of aimed and special attacks too.
If you want to avoid a direct confrontation and talking isn’t your thing, you can also try a stealthy approach, but unfortunately, stealth here isn’t a full playstyle but more of a side attraction, as you can only engage in stealth during certain predetermined scenarios.
With all that in mind, can the game support those robust systems? Honestly, it’s too early to tell. The writing is certainly strong enough. I think, what with Disco Elysium, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and now Colony Ship, I’m starting to develop a Pavlovian response equating right-aligned text in RPGs with quality writing.
However, the conflict on display in the current build, while engaging in its own right, leaves me worried about where a story like this could go. Sure, sorting out some rival factions and helping them decide how to run the ship is neat and all, but compare that to The Age of Decadence where you can start as a no-name apprentice and end up having a chat with ancient aliens through a stargate before fighting some godlike creatures. Or you can just be a thief and do thief things.
In contrast, the colony ship setting doesn’t leave a lot of room for crazy developments like that. Plus, I don’t think the game has such wildly different playthroughs in mind for different characters. Your main points of divergence are the people you support and the factions they represent. And while that too can provide plenty of replayability, I wouldn’t mind having some specialized quests, like a grand heist for a stealthy character, or some crazy plan for an engineer to boost the performance of the ship's engines.
And as if to taunt us, even before it starts, the game teases some interesting developments waiting for us on the other end of the trip. But right from the get-go, we know that our characters won't live to see them. On the other hand, when judged on its own merits and not a sample of things to come, the early access content is pretty solid. And hopefully, Iron Tower has a stash of rabbits they plan to pull on us somewhere down the line.
Technical Information
On the technical side of things, the early access build is fairly stable, but there’s a decent chance you’ll encounter some minor bugs and issues here and there.
The game’s UI is intuitive and doesn’t look too shabby, but it’s too small, especially when it comes to text, and you can’t resize it.
Partly due to that, clicking tends to be a bit too precise. As a result, trying to reposition your characters before a battle can become mighty annoying. And during exploration, cycling through characters doesn’t snap your camera to them, but instead swaps the characters themselves. And that can really get on your nerves when you’re trying to get your party through some tight spot.
Speaking of which. The game has a fixed camera angle, but its level design, while detailed and a joy to look at, can be quite disorienting. Navigating the ship’s tight walkways and multiple levels of elevation can be quite a challenge. You do get used to it, but initially, there’s a good chance you’ll be running into walls for a while.
And while we’re discussing navigation, Colony Ship is all about convenience. You can generally get wherever you need to go using only your map and a couple of clicks. And while this is quite handy, right now the maps are incomplete, which seems to me like an invitation to do some exploring.
At the same time, the only way to move between the ship’s levels is by using the map, which I found a bit counterintuitive. In fact, I didn’t even think of using the map for this purpose before exhausting all the content within the starting level.
I really wouldn’t mind it if the developers put a big elevator somewhere just for those of us who want to traverse the ship in a more natural fashion.
As for the audio, the music is great and fits the game very well, but the miscellaneous audio effects are beyond weak. Hopefully, they’re just placeholders.
Other things to mention here is that right now the game doesn’t have autosaves, but those are already being worked on.
Conclusion
Colony Ship combines the best parts of The Age of Decadence and Dungeon Rats and puts them in a neat new setting. And while it still has a long way to go, the seeds of greatness are already there.
If you liked Iron Tower’s earlier projects, you should definitely get Colony Ship. But even if you didn’t, you might still enjoy Colony Ship as it’s more player-friendly, less stingy with its content, and can boast a more intuitive skill system.
And seeing how the studio has a proven track record and the current early access price is as low as it will ever get, potential future discounts aside, there's no reason not to get Colony Ship right now even if you’re only interested in playing the full version.
