Stratagem

This is the playable alpha built during the design process for the Stratagem Kickstarter campaign. The campaign did not fund, but we still wanted to publicly share the demo that was built internally for design and testing.

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Game Design, Programming - Ross Squires

Art - Nate Marcel

Music, Sound - Tony Lodise

Writing - Sara Lodise

UI Design, Testing - Chad Breeden

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STRATAGEM is a new spin on the tactical, turn-based game. You’ll be  able to uncover your opponent’s strategy several moves ahead, giving new  ways to analyze, experiment, and subvert. The adventure takes the Grey Hauler nuclear waste ship to a mysterious world. As they crash land, the  mysterious radiating tension fields of the planet mutate a faction of  the crew, giving them new abilities. As the marooned crew fends off the  harsh environment, you will be able to pair the characters’ infused  powers with a tactical overlay that allows you to outmaneuver your  opponents.

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The Grey Hauler's twenty-sixth journey is routine, a ten-year round  trip to an E-type planet with the right atmospheric conditions (and the  legally required distance from Earth) to process the nuclear waste in  the Hauler's hold into priceless space fuel and bury the even more  dangerous process residue. Space Waste Corp, contracted by United Earth  to remove and 'dispose' of hazardous materials according to the Clean  Space Act, doesn’t pay particularly well, but it’s a decent job for most  of the five-hundred-person crew, considering they’re paid half-time to  cryo-sleep. For the resident scientists, these journeys are God's work,  cleaning the Earth and surrounding space of its persistent pollutants.  For the waste handlers, this is the job their genetic abnormalities and  toxin immunities were made for.

Captain Talz ignores his instinct to call off the landing when the  first crew member, a cook named Fae Long, winds up in the medical bay  with unexplainably extended arms and a developing skin condition. Space  Waste Corp never sent the missions with enough fuel to return home. He  knows they have to land and use the planet’s Simethal deposits to  convert their waste load to fuel. The process is routine, and will only  take a few months with the patchwork equipment they have onboard.

However, when the Hauler lands, surface scans show no trace of the  vital Simethal mineral in the planet's crust. Instead, where Space  Waste's long-range scanner had reported deep deposits, there are only  smoking canyons and craters. Something in the past decade caused the  mineral to combust… and destabilized the very surface of the planet. The  air tingles, as if an invisible field of tension is the only thing  holding the land together.

The predicament of being stranded on a wild and volatile planet is  enough to tax the crew and its small corporate security force, but it  pales in comparison to the danger brewing in the Hauler’s medical bay.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stratagem-game/stratagem-0

The software and media are owned by the individual contributors to the project. The alpha is free to play, but the material is only transferable as a demo release here.