New release: I Miss the Sunrise

Word reaches me that there’s a new sci-fi, turn-based tactical RPG available from TildeOne Games called I Miss the Sunrise.

I’d give you a plot breakdown, but the developers don’t seem to provide one, and frankly, I don’t have time to play through the entire game just to come up with one myself. A diligent reader points me toward the wiki, which contains the following plot summary:

Thousands of years from now, mankind had achieved a perfect, utopian society. Marvels of science and technology allowed every need to be cared for and granted worldwide peace. Even immortality had been achieved. Humans traveled to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, discovering a new, alien species, the lacertians. In time, they were integrated seamlessly into human culture (though their evolutionary relatives, the “Lessers”, were too barbaric to be reasoned with). The dreams of humanity across the galaxy had been achieved, and progress was poised to march ever onwards. Everything was perfect.

But in an instant, that all changed.

A strange, unknown event, known only as “the Shine”, wrought havoc across all of civilization. A blinding flash of light appeared to warp reality, slicing mechanical constructs and ships into fragments as if it was peeling them apart. For an unknown reason, planets were not affected, but little else was spared from the destruction. Billions died, and relay nodes were destroyed, isolating communication and fragmenting civilization further. In addition, emotions, suppressed for aeons, began to surface, leading to chaos as people tried to fight over what was left. Bandits and marauders fought survivors over the scraps of civilization, and, to make matters worse, the Lessers became far more intelligent, stealing ships and using them to cause even more destruction.

However, emotions are not purely negative. Determination and hope also arose, and with them, a light in the darkness was formed: the Inquiry Project, headed by commander Virgil Sorenson. Its goal is to repair the fractured world to its former glory, to restore peace and order once more. A daunting and nigh-impossible task, to be sure, but they have hope…

You are Ros Ouranos, a pilot with no knowledge of their prior identity. You awake in a stasis pod aboard the Inquiry, and are told you are one of three pilots the crew found in a strange, abandoned ship. Your abilities are unique, as you have a special protein in your body that, when combined with another chemical, grants you the ability to think in a sort of stasis, taking as long as necessary to analyze a situation while appearing to take no time at all from an outside perspective. This is, obviously, an incredibly important ability for a commander to have, and thus, like it or not, you are the Inquiry Project’s last hope.

Oh, and you’d better be careful…the other two pilots didn’t last very long.

The developers do provide bullet points, however, so here those are:

• No typical HP & MP drudgery. Instead, all participants have Hull, Systems, and Pilot ratings that serve as both health and fuel for weapons. Reducing any one to 0 means defeat, so spacefarers beware!
• Create your own pilot. Give ’em a name, then choose your gender, race, and customized personality – all of which determines how you interact with other denizens of the universe.
• Assemble your own weapons. Use salvaged components to customize and outfit your own weapons, name them whatever you want, and use their blueprint codes to share your creations with other players!
• Fast-paced, strategic turn-based battles reward careful positioning and targeting over brute force. Exploit your enemies’ vulnerabilities while covering your own!
• An entire fleet of allies is waiting. Explore the remains of civilization with more than a dozen playable characters.
• Episodic content and huge replayability. Multiple side missions and randomized exploration zones means there is always something to accomplish.

About that “episodic content” bullet: I Miss the Sunrise was originally released across five separate episodes. However, the whole thing was recently made available as a single game. You can download the complete game for free right here.