Gameplay
Deep systems. Hard choices. A clock you can’t ignore.
Arcbound is a systemic sci-fi colony builder set in the final 300 days before Earth’s timeline collapses. Expand a fragile 7×7 arcship into a self-sustaining lifeboat while balancing oxygen, food, power, water and morale, and running high-risk missions back to a dying world.
Build the arcship
Grow from a tiny platform into a modular ship. Every tile and connection matters, expansion trades stability for capability.
Balance life support
O₂, power, water, food, waste and morale are interlinked. Fix one bottleneck and you may create another.
Run missions under pressure
Rescue survivors, raid for fuel, salvage tech. Missions can save your run, or accelerate the collapse you’re racing.
Show the starter platform evolving into a larger, layered layout with key modules labelled.
A living ship, not a static base
Your arcship is a fragile ecosystem. Layout decisions affect traversal, throughput, redundancy and failure cascades. Build for efficiency, then build again for resilience.
- Modular expansion from a 7×7 start
- Throughput constraints: power lines, water routing, O₂ distribution
- Redundancy planning to survive emergencies
Interlocking survival systems
Life support isn’t a checklist, it’s a web. Short power leads to failing scrubbers, which impacts O₂, which impacts crew performance, which impacts repairs.
- Oxygen production/scrubbing and consumption
- Power generation, storage and brownout behaviour
- Food and water cycles with maintenance costs
Graphs or UI indicating O₂, power, water and morale changing over time.
Crew list with traits, morale indicators, and role assignment UI.
Crew that can carry you… or break you
Crew aren’t just workers, they’re a pressure multiplier. Their traits and morale change how quickly problems appear, how fast you can respond, and how stable the ship feels.
- Assign crew to critical roles and stations
- Traits influence productivity, stress, and risk
- Morale as a stability lever (not just flavour)
High-risk missions back to a dying world
Every mission is a trade. Rescue more survivors and strain your systems. Raid for fuel and accelerate collapse. Bring back tech and unlock new pathways.
- Rescue vs salvage decision-making
- Mission outcomes feed back into ship systems
- Escalation: the closer to day 300, the harsher the cost
A mission board or selection UI with risk, reward, and time impact shown.
Alert stack, damaged module, crew responding, systems dipping.
Emergencies and cascading failure
Crises should feel physical: breaches, fires, shortages and malfunctions that ripple through your layout. The best ship is the one that fails gracefully.
- Cascades: one fault triggers the next
- Emergency response and prioritisation
- Design for containment and recovery
What’s in the MVP beta?
The beta focuses on the core loop: expand the ship, stabilise life support, and prepare for launch while the 300-day pressure forces hard trade-offs.
- Core ship building + early progression
- Primary resources and failure states
- Mission loop foundations
- Patch notes and rapid iteration
Next steps
Join the beta, send feedback, and watch the changelog for updates.