After a successful run on the Epic Games Store, duskers what happened, an uncompromising, claustrophobic and tense space-based real time strategy game, is now available for free until March 2, 2023. In Duskers, players pilot drones into derelict starships in a universe that’s gone dead, seeking the means to survive and piece together how the galaxy became a giant graveyard. It’s a strange mix of roguelike, dungeon crawler and survival horror that defies easy genre labelling.
Keenan explains that he started the project with the goal of creating a game that would put players in the shoes of a person in a darkened control room, gazing into a bank of monitors. The idea evolved into controlling remote drones through abandoned starships, a setting he likened to being in a darkened garage with a bunch of tools and no sense of where to start.
The resulting game is something quite special. Duskers has been described as a “no-fuss” experience with a minimal interface that requires nothing but a keyboard and some basic commands (such as "navigate 1 2 3 r3" to move your starting drones into a specific room). The ominous creaking of the hull, the soft whirring that might be machinery or something far worse, the muted thunder of sentry guns pounding on alien life forms in another part of the ship—everything comes to life through the simple interface.
It’s a testament to the team behind the game that they were able to create a sense of danger and isolation with so few resources. When the shit really hits the fan, however, and your carefully constructed plans fall apart, it’s when the game really shines.
