STARLINE: FIRST CONTACT

**STARLINE: FIRST CONTACT** Wing Commander and X-Wing meet Game of Thrones and the Victorian Royal Navy. A story-driven space sim where life aboard your ship matters as much as the battles you fly. Built solo for the Game Jam, this prototype is a first taste of Starline. If players want more, I plan to develop a full first season across 6–8 episodes. --- **STORY LINE** Starline is a story-driven space combat adventure set in 2282, where humanity has spread across the stars but carried its old divisions with it. The Union of Terrestrial Systems rules through Parliament, the Navy and five aristocratic families - an empire where a name still opens doors that thirty years of service will not. Frontier worlds struggle for independence, and pirates thrive beyond the Union's reach. Human space is connected by starlines: charted routes stretching out from Earth, Starline 0. Three years ago, an encounter with an unknown enemy in the Vega system ended in the destruction of the USS Drake. Now fighting a war it was never prepared for, the Union is bringing retired ships and their crews back into service. You join the USS Ark Royale, an ageing strike carrier dragged back out of the breaker's yard after eight years in the queue for the torch, whose speed has become more valuable than the armour of the fleet's largest warships. After experiencing First Contact through veteran pilot Paul 'Ghost' Grenville, you take the role of Cadet Ethan Hawke, the son of the celebrated admiral who died aboard the Drake. Between combat missions, you explore the carrier and get to know a crew bound together by decades of service, divided loyalties and unfinished business. Your father's closest friend is now your Wing Commander - and the man least willing to talk about him. As you earn your place aboard, you begin to discover why the hero the Union remembers may not be the man his crewmates knew. --- **IN THIS PROTOTYPE** - Episode 0 — First Contact. Fly the engagement that started the war. - Episode 1 — The Ark Royale. Explore the ship on foot—from the bridge and hangar to engineering, sick bay, crew quarters and the bar. Meet the yard hands still finishing her refit. - Multiplayer. Take part in a 4v4 Navy war game: Red versus Blue, fighter against fighter. --- **A QUICK NOTE FROM ME** I built Starline on my own for the Game Jam, with limited time and budget. The voices and music are AI-generated, which I edited and mastered myself, and the ships and station are licensed assets I bought. They've helped me get this prototype made, but there’s plenty I’d like to improve. If Starline wins a prize, all of that money will go back into the game. First on the list is hiring voice actors. The Episode 1 script is already written, and I’d love to hear actors bring Ghost Grenville and Captain Cavendish to life. After that, it’ll go towards improving the art and developing the rest of Season One. If you enjoyed playing and want to see more, I’d really appreciate your vote. It would help me take Starline further. Thanks for giving it a go. **UPDATE** This is version 0.1, so i expect bugs, now and again I do get small lag spikes, but I think that maybe my machine rather than the game (Ive tried on another PC and it was fine). If you do have any bugs, please let me know.