DEAD RECKONING

THE LONG DRIFT

Demo out now on Steam Releases June 25, 2026 Also on itch.io Colony Sim Narrative Strategy Windows · Linux · macOS

You are the ship's AI. 1,000 colonists in cryo. Centuries of void between you and a world that may or may not be worth arriving at.

Dead Reckoning is a slow-burn strategy and narrative game about managing drift — ideological, genetic, social, technological, biological — across a generational voyage. Every decision is defensible in the moment. The horror is retroactive.

Manage food, power, and hull integrity across centuries of deep space. Navigate crises, uprisings, and failures that compound silently into irreversible outcomes. Five forces reshape your colony across generations. Every choice nudges the needle. None of them reset. The faction that rises in year 200 was built from decisions you made in year 40.

Settlement. Extinction. Digital transcendence. A ship that turns back. A crew that ascends without landing. Every run tells a different story. What reaches that planet is the sum of everything you did — and didn't do — across centuries in the dark. You may not recognize it. You may not want to.

Wishlist + play demo on Steam Also on itch.io Read the manual (PDF) Press kit

TRAILER

PLAY THE DEMO

Demo available now. Full release June 25, 2026.

FEATURES

Five drift systems

Genetic, ideological, AI integration, technological regression, class stratification. Each accumulates silently across generations. None of them reset.

Eleven endings

Settlement. Extinction. Digital transcendence. A ship that turns back. A crew that ascends without landing. The ending is a function of everything you did — and didn't do.

Five-faction governance

Factions rise and fall across centuries based on the decisions of crews long dead. The faction dominant in year 200 was shaped by choices you made in year 40.

Six interdependent subsystems

Reactor, engine, bridge, cryo, life support, hull. Failures cascade through the graph. Cryo failure wakes the sleeper population — and changes everything.

Centuries, not hours

The simulation runs on a generational timescale. Colonists are born, age, and die during the voyage. Most of the people affected by your decisions will never meet you.

No combat. No perfect run.

Every choice has a defensible case. Every run tells a different story. The game is not about winning; it's about what the ship becomes.

CRT / terminal aesthetic

Phosphor green, teal accents, scanlines. Pixel type. A deliberate callback to the mainframe-era future that never arrived.

Deterministic simulation

Seeded runs reproduce exactly — useful for post-mortem and for sharing stories. Hundreds of hand-written narrative beats, plus emergent cascades from compounding system state.

SCREENSHOTS

Final Contact — Earth Broadcast, year 9 — Year 9 — Final Contact: Earth Broadcast

Planet detected — volcanic candidate, year 22 — Year 22 — Planet detected: volcanic candidate

Founding governance directive, year 22 — Year 22 — Founding governance directive

Two candidate planets side-by-side, year 53 — Year 53 — Candidate planets, compared

Threshold crossed — AI advisory role expanding, year 44 — Year 44 — Threshold crossed: AI role expanding

Research sidebar — subsystem diagram — Research — subsystem diagram

THE MANUAL

The full in-universe manual is a captain's briefing on ship subsystems, drift mechanics, governance, research, and the long chain of consequence that defines the voyage. Read it before you leave the system — or after, when you're trying to piece together what happened.

Open the manual (PDF) Download

PRESS & CONTACT

For review copies, press inquiries, and interviews:

[ press email — click to reveal ]

A compiled press kit — factsheet, features, history, quotes, capsule art, screenshots, logo — lives on its own page:

Open press kit