About Star Trail: a space survival game inspired by The Oregon Trail
Star Trail is a free pixel-art space survival game you play in your browser. It borrows the bones of The Oregon Trail (a long journey, never quite enough supplies, and people you're responsible for) and sets them in a galaxy that's generated fresh every time you play. What makes it Star Trail is the crew: they have opinions about how you lead, and they remember.
The premise
You're the captain of a small, unlucky ship a very long way from home. Between you and home are three sections of space, and the only way through is one jump at a time, square by square across a star chart, from the top corner of each section to the gate in the far corner. You can't see much of what's out there until you jump into it. Every jump burns fuel, every square holds something, and every decision is yours.
The journey
The first section is a compact 8×8 grid of sectors. The second is 16×16, and the last is a sprawling 32×32. Each ends at a gate with a harbour, a place to refuel and patch the hull before pushing on into the next. Danger builds as you go: the start of each section is quiet, while blockades, traps and worse wait near the end, and the whole journey grows harder the closer you get to home. The ship's fuel scoop gathers a little fuel from the gas between the stars every few jumps, which is the only reason a journey this long is survivable at all.
Your supplies
Six things keep you alive, and most decisions trade one against another.
- Fuel. Every jump costs it, nebulae cost double, and running dry leaves you adrift for good.
- Hull. Pirates, debris and bad luck wear it down. If it gives way, the journey ends.
- Food. Everyone aboard eats every jump, you included. Short rations stretch it, at a cost to morale; run out, and the crew start to starve.
- Crew. Up to six people, each with their own job, temperament and loyalties.
- Scrap. Salvage that pays for repairs and upgrades in the workshop: deflector shields, a laser battery, a long-range scanner, extra fuel tanks, hull plating, evasive thrusters and a mining laser.
- Morale. The crew's mood. A miserable ship is a fragile one.
A procedurally generated galaxy
Every journey builds a new galaxy from a seed: its layout, its terrain, its encounters, the ships you meet and the planets you fly past. The terrain turns the route into a real decision. Nebulae hide you from pirates but cost double the fuel to enter. Asteroid belts can't be crossed and force you round. Lawless space is thick with pirates and salvage alike.
The squares hold dozens of kinds of encounter: pirate fleets and blockades, derelict ships and stasis pods, distress calls that may or may not be traps, trading outposts, travelling merchants, black markets, casino stations, refugee convoys, ship graveyards, wormholes, uncharted planets to survey, and a race you can enter if you dare. Some outcomes change the chart itself: a bounty hunter who closes in a square every jump, a star counting down to a supernova, an ion storm, a cache someone told you about. Rarer encounters turn up only every so often across many journeys. And if a previous journey ended with your ship lost, you may come across its wreck.
The crew
A journey begins with a muster: you meet eight people and choose four to come with you. Others join along the way, as rescued survivors, recruits from outposts, even the odd stowaway. About one in twenty isn't human at all.
Everyone has two traits, on show from the moment you meet them: a veteran who's steady under fire, a gambler, a tinkerer, a pig who eats two shares of the food, a spacesick crewmate who wilts in every nebula. Every trait has an upside and a downside, so choosing who comes along is a real decision. A few people also carry secrets, which stay hidden until something brings them out. Everyone also has values of their own, about courage, mercy, profit, strangers and order, so the same decision lands differently with different people. Fight when you could have fled, and the bold cheer while the careful quietly decide you're reckless. Their faces show what they think of you, and after every choice the ones who care say so.
Over a journey, the crew turn into characters. They become friends, fall in love and fall out. They hold grudges, about you and about each other. Back the same person in every argument and the rest notice. Make a promise, and it comes due. Agree to a detour so someone can see home, and it appears on your chart, with a countdown. Push someone too far and they may leave, or stay and start sabotaging the ship in secret, and when the crew go looking for the culprit, they don't always find the right one. None of it is scripted. It comes from a handful of rules applied to whoever happens to be aboard.
Losing the crew isn't the end on its own. A captain left alone can keep going for a little while, if someone joins in time. But a crew that has lost faith in you can turn mutinous, and grief, hunger and fear all leave their mark.
How a journey ends
You reach home, or you don't: the ship breaks apart, the fuel runs out, the crew starve, or the silence of an empty ship gets to you. Either way, the end screen tells the story of the run: who sailed with you, who made it home and what they think of you, who you lost and where, what kind of captain you turned out to be, and the things nobody aboard ever found out.
Made for phones and browsers
Star Trail is built portrait-first, for one thumb, and plays in any modern mobile or desktop browser with no download or account. Your journey saves on your device as you play, so you can put it down mid-section and pick it up later. iPhone and Android apps are on the way.
Art and sound
The look is retro pixel art throughout. Planets are drawn with pixel-art shaders, every sector's backdrop is painted the same way, ships are generated as chunky 3D models from the same seed as everything else, and the explosions, warps and shield hits are hand-drawn sprite effects. There are no audio files: all of the sound is synthesised in your browser, and the music is composed bar by bar as you play, changing with the mood of the moment.
Who makes it
Star Trail is made by Greyden Scott at Greyden Games, an indie studio that also makes Hoppy Dungeon. Questions, ideas and bug reports are welcome at support@greyden.games.