Redshirt

Redshirt is a comedy sci-fi social simulation about using a station-wide social network to build relationships and advance your career before a looming disaster. You play a newly arrived, low-ranking worker aboard the space station Megalodon-9, starting as a Transporter Accident Cleanup Technician. With intergalactic conflict raging around you and rumours of a catastrophe aboard the station, you have limited time to stop being a disposable nobody.

Life on Megalodon-9

Everyone aboard the station must use Spacebook, its proprietary social network. You interact with randomly generated, AI-driven characters who have individual personalities and profile pictures, and try to win friends and influence station citizens. You can customise the kinds of personalities you encounter, from friendly chatterboxes to self-obsessed bigots.

You update your profile, like other people’s statuses, send private messages and arrange Spacebook events with friends, frenemies and higher-ranking officers. These interactions can affect your relationships and skills. The game also follows station life through humorous status updates and messages, with political intrigue and plenty of puns.

Build a career and relationships

Redshirt uses turn-based gameplay and offers several routes to success. You can develop the skills needed to move up an extensive, non-linear career tree, build influence through friendships and schmoozing, pursue romance, or combine these approaches. You manage your interests and skills, and can save KarmaCreds or spend them in the Self-Help Object Purveyor (S.H.O.P.) on items such as RoboCats and illegal hoverbikes to increase your stats and skills.

You can create and customise your character, choosing from five species, from humans to tentacled squid creatures. The station’s characters and their personalities are procedurally generated, so each game is different. Your choices may lead to promotion, romance, a game of Zero-G golf with the captain, an off-station transfer or an away mission.