the collective

BACKGROUND (REAL LIFE)
Please note that this game is being built as a "father daughter" project. My kid wants to be an AI Scientist and I thought this would be a good experiment to teach her about what GenAI can do today, how it may help humanity in the future, and how different computer mechanics today work together (software, audio, video, imagery, etc).
You will see a lot of similarities to Stardew Valley, Factorio, Starbound, Dwarf Fortress (her and my favorite games), but there is no chance this game would be anywhere near the quality/level of those games. I have a background in software engineering, but we don't have a team of top-notch veterans with years of experience in game development. We want to make a mini-playable game, but really this is about the making of the game itself.
The story, however, is pretty cool :)

THE GAME
You are Luma Hartwell, 25 years old, born aboard a ship you never chose. Three centuries ago, people you'll never meet decided what your life should look like -- the training you'd complete, the roles you'd fill, the challenges you'd face. None of it is natural. All of it is by design.
Your mother just passed away. The ship's recyclers are already processing her into nutrients for the gardens. In 750 years of voyage, sentiment cannot outweigh survival. Now it's just you, a ship full of people who knew her better than you did, and questions about your father that no one wants to answer.
So what do you do with a life someone else architected?
Build. Factory mechanics -- belts, inserters, circuits, materials -- but the factory is life support. Food production, atmosphere control, power systems. Inefficiency has human consequences.
Live. Enjoy your time aboard the ship or step into the Collective -- a virtual space where you can perform experimental research and building happens.
Connect. The people, and AI personalities, on your ship remember what you do and change over time. This isn't a quest log -- it's a community small enough that every person matters.
Discover. Learning what happened to your father takes you on a path of self-introspection.
A destination centuries away. A life designed by people long gone. What you make of it is up to you.

GAMEPLAY
The current idea is to have three core interwoven pillars: a fairly complex storyline that is not fully based on reality but fairly plausible, a factory simulation where players can harvest resources, manufacture goods, build production chains, and alter their ship and surrounding world, and finally, social interaction with other characters in the game which includes simulated humans and simulated AI "bots" (think Tesla's Optimus, but with personality).
Beyond the core factory loop of harvesting, crafting, and automating with belts, inserters, and circuits, players will manage maglev transport networks, ai bot guiding, power generation, fluid piping, farming, and logistics storage across multiple surfaces of the ship. The social side goes deeper than simple dialogue -- crew members have persistent memory, relationships, and reputation that evolve over time based on player decisions. Tying it all together is a generational narrative spanning 750 years and 7 generations aboard a colony ship, where the consequences of early choices ripple forward in ways players won't fully anticipate.

A NOTE ABOUT AI
We want to be upfront about AI usage in this project -- it is heavy. We use AI extensively for code assistance, game asset generation, voice synthesis, and more. It touches nearly every part of the development pipeline.
Beyond development, the game will actually ship with a local LLM (OpenHermes as of now, but that may change) running on the player's machine. This powers in-game dialogue generation and behavioral simulation, giving NPCs the ability to respond dynamically rather than through pre-written scripts.
That said, there is one area where AI was deliberately kept out: the game lore. The core plotlines, backdrop, and character arcs are entirely human-created. We do use AI to help fill in some narrative gaps and flesh out details, but the story itself -- the world, the characters, the choices that matter -- came from us. The reason is that the lore is part of our experience together -- asking ourselves what it means to get along with machines in the future, and how human tribalism evolves in the face of coexisting with semi-biological species that may not have real consciousness but are collectively more intelligent than all of humanity. This is something we talk about constantly, and it's the central theme across the entire game.