Voyage of the New Horizon is the story of Earth’s first deep space colony ship, the New Horizon, headed for a distant, pre-chosen world called Eden. Players will play the ship’s four AIs: Navigation, Engineering, Environmental Control, and Populace.

The game will use rotating narration, and a three act structure of 1/4/1, with the first and last acts being the prologue and epilogue to the actual journey. Each of the scenes of the journey itself will present some unique set of challenges that the AIs running the New Horizon have to overcome (or fail to overcome, and face the consequences). This means each player will narrate one scene during the journey to Eden.

Long, introspective moves and moves that are just about interacting with populace and/or other AIs are encouraged, whether playing on a challenge or not.

Each leg of the journey will be a generation or more passing as the FTL drive recharges for the next interstellar jump. Each scene therefore takes place in its own unique star system/location, without the ability to use faster than light travel to leave. This will (hopefully) give each new narrator free reign to create an entirely new situation for the AIs to tackle, without ignoring any old problems or benefits built up from previous scenes.

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The AIs are meant to serve the people, and the people will (at least at first) have their own government, and will want to tell the AIs what to do. However, the AIs have the final say most or all of the time, as part of the ship designers’ plan to provide inter-generational consistency and continuity over a very long voyage.

Thus, there is an inherent tension between a built in desire to be at the service of the humans, and a built in desire to rule over them and look at them a bit like short-sighted, short-lived children who don’t always know what’s best. However, all of the AIs are hard-coded to love and protect their human charges. What forms that love and protection take, however, is up to each player.

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New Horizon layout info:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11A9ZaVo3-XNZBbkinmB0kD_VSjWCPBbg/view?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12W3pEuJXup3eshkVUDSYaQ3Bj2XiW8NsKhHc_-zcu7Y/edit?usp=sharing

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NPC reference spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CSMsaJrH_LcVLXUwTv1QSkxprah5ie6iaO5lPchOAFY/edit?usp=sharing

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This game takes a fair amount of inspiration from this browser game:

http://philome.la/johnayliff/seedship/play

But, I am not looking to recreate the exact experience of that game. It’s just part of what gave me the idea for this one.

Hosted by: Amanda Burn (Mandaofthe6)

Rotating narration

Started 11/06/17. Scenes played: 3

License: Community License