It's not often I go look for things that had enough time to curate before being released... especially on web2... but this one got my attention the moment I saw "10 years" in development.

And after a few screenshots, I checked a couple of videos, and decided to give it a shot...

It has now been a few weeks since I have been playing it... and given it has been a while I haven't had such fun on a web2 game... I thought about making a story about it to remind me in the future of the old days.

I know many might not enjoy these slow paced indie style games, but for me, this is like recalling old memories. While having fun... distracting myself from the horrible real world, and simply having a break.

Something with meaning, because in this game, things can have meaning. Like in many other games yes, but this one speaks to me from the heart of the old times. Things used to be simple, but also not just next next next, and with different challenges to play, while still very enjoyable.

Space Heaven is one of them...

Looks like this game was developed by a small 3-person team in Finland called Bugbyte. And even if it was 6-years in early access, to finally call it "finished" must have been an amazing taste.

Recall that many games on Hive follow this kind of pattern (or followed, until the AI came), so people sometimes get surprised about it when in the real world, the same things can also exist.

Right, let's go, the story of The Mammoth!

(note, it was only when I was already deep in the game that I recalled about doing this, so you won't see much from the beginning... also, that makes you go play and support the game, so it all aligns) 😉

The idea with this post is to get you some context, even if I had mingled two snaps about it already down here:

@forkyishere/re-peaksnaps-tgglc8

Then I won't continue posting in this long format about it any further, and instead I will update people via snaps, and refer to the tag #themammoth in order to tag my own progress.

First, I want to introduce you to my crew of 9 (will change over time).

We have,

Ana - Mostly a researcher and a botanist girl
Bishop - The super brave weapons, builder and mining guy
Edmund - The Bishop buddy brave companion, He's the best with guns!
Esteban - Recently onboarded future surgeon, gun specialist, operations guy and mining enthusiast
Kayley - The research buddy of Ana and the best Ship all hands operator. A generalist like myself...
Maggie - Oh Maggie... so many issues you have caused me, but an excellent weapons girl, a miner and soon also an industry expert (she was a mess before she learned a few things, and even got bugged by an alien).
Rune - A Chemical engineer that can do SO MANY things... botanist, medical, research and moderately good at weapons! And also can navigate, operate and manage shielding stations!
Ryne - This one is a fricking Comedian, but pairs up with Rune and her stats, although basic medical skills only. Although in addition is good at industry, can construct and do some mining (Rune can't).
Tilley - She is a welder, good at industry and solid construction skills. She's also a great gunner at the ship, and will be the best pilot eventually (once I build a fighter).

The ship has been greatly expanded already, but just to give you a sense of where you start... You start with a crew of 4 and a basically empty ship... only one miner and two builders vessels, and a shuttle.

All the rest here is basically built and designed by yourself (in this case, myself). And also, this is my first experience, I didn't restart the game just to make it perfect... so I am sometimes either finding bugs or little things that I haven't quite yet figured out the best way to use them.

I won't give too much away, because I want it to be a live story mode experience, and whoever follows it, thanks for following along. If you are playing this too, feel free to share some experience and/or comment about my ship design. I have not or had any particular target design, and because it was looking like a big chunk of thing... I decided to call it "The Mammoth".

As you can see, I went the full solar panel mode... it eventually pays off, but I am still very early... to finish the post, my late re-organising of the ship, had to go set the engines in a symmetrical way, because I didn't have space for the long split of the ship.

And having more engines eventually allowed me to extend it for the next adventure. Add more cargo space for more items, and other little improvements, like adding more heaters.

One more update before I go. This weekend, I have added the first ship to ship turret (because I am going to fight soon). A new Bed (like to have an extra one just in case I find a new crew and don't yet want to discard someone), while having some extra ones for slaves that I have to rescue and 2 more engines for the next hull expansion.