Aurora

Aurora
Alpha Project
Developer	Jedi-Philosopher
Theme	Space exploration
Influences	Prospector, Star Control
Released	Jan, 2013
Updated	July 8, 2015
Licensing	Source code available (paid binary download via Steam)
P. Language	Java
Platforms	Windows, Linux, Mac
Interface	GUI, with mouse support
Game Length	short
Official site of Aurora

Aurora is a space exploration roguelike game, heavily inspired by Star Control 2 and Prospector. Player takes command of a scout starship, that is sent from Earth to explore outer space, establish contacts with other species and bring anything valuable back home. And when we say 'scout starship' we don't mean that small unarmed one-man thing. We mean a real ship, with dozens of crew members, with on-board laboratories and workshops and its own military regiment.

Player progress is tracked by Earth government, in case of poor performance game will be over. Good performance can affect the development of a solar system. See how new ships and stations appear there, that use technologies discovered in your travel.

However, deep space hides not only treasures, but also threats, that can be deadly not for a single ship, but for the whole human kind.

Trailer video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSC3zbHznAQ

Features

Currently game has:

• Randomly generated galaxy
• Traveling between star systems
• Star system view with planets and ships
• Planet exploration with resource mining and monster combat (monsters and plant images are also procedurally generated using Frankenstein library.
• Research projects for discovered animals, lands and artifacts, wit X-Com style scientist management
• Player score evaluation when returning to Earth
• Dialog and storytelling system
• Global plot with saving humanity from threats of outer space
• 2 endings (not including different types of gameover)
• Localization (currently RU and EN)

Development state

Currently game is in an alpha state. Major features are implemented, and the global plot is currently under development. In latest 0.5.0 steam-version there is about a 1/3 of a main storyline done.

Links

• Wiki - [1]
• Development blog - [2]
• Downloads page - [3]. Game can be downloaded either as a zip archive (requires installed java 7 to run) or as a standalone exe which already includes the required JVM.
• Steam early access page - [4]

Some screenshots

Space view:

Surface view:

Research screen

Dialog screen

Intro