I was watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LkYEfn3Cwo and was thinking about the last few moments when the satellite was told to just 'crash land' on the comet.
A Game about controlled abstinence?
Imagine this 'robot' is on the surface of a comet. the comet releases gasses from time to time, its made up of varied rock, and has some level of gravity. Imagine if when the comet passes the sun, the solar panels charge up, and begin to work, but the commands from earth are not in range, so the programming of the device, to not lose any opportunity, is to perform tasks it decides are important.
You are the program.
You have a limited array of choices to begin with. soil drill, sample retriver, sample crusher, sample melter, sample chemical mix, a small 3D printer, and a loader to load in one of the materials. All of which are also in the 3D printers memory banks.
So, to start, you have limited power per 'run' and have to decide, and decide quickly, (because thinking costs power too) to choose what tasks to perform.
The game starts off with a few buttons and maybe sliders. a battery value, (in binary) maybe datetime stamps, also in binary. and you can send data to earth, if you think you are lined up for it.
Your first few 'runs' you'll gather some resources, crush them, melt them or chem mix them and report those value to earth. you won't know if earth got them or not.
after some time, once one of your material storage areas is full, you'll be instructed that you can create a new storage for the resources. AND the ability to dump the resources when it gets too full. You'll be unaware of your maximum capacity, until its filled, and then you'll unlock instructions where to store the new ones.
The Aim is to explore options. there will be instructions to do things that will be counter productive to the game. the earth team don't want /expect you to do anything else except gather samples, study samples and report back to earth what was found.
The Reality is, Earth is not getting your signals. Your solar array is misaligned and damaged. Your samples are just dropping to the ground when you finish, because the storage is not full.
Exploration, means you discover to fill one container with one material til its full to unlock the 3D plans for a 2nd container.
you 'ping' space at each possible interval, to determine where the sun is. and then use what little power you have to turn your solar array in that direction.
This increases the amount of power you'll get, which means turning on earlier in the sequence, and lasting longer while IN sunlight.
creation of more batteries is possible, once its understood that the batteries are maxing out, because one battery is dead. and another is slowly failing. so, using the 'release' valve, the dead batteries can be dropped, and new ones inserted via the 'arm'
There is also the smaller unit, once enough power is established to ping for the local unit. it can be guided to come back to the main unit by extending its legs and needle in the right pattern, and the signal becomes slightly stronger (and needs less power), until it 'bumps' into the main. and now it can have an arm attached to it, at each of its leg joints, and they in turn can be used to un-attach the original arm and improve it with a better arm, with more joints, giving access to repair the solar panels that were broken.
Once this happens, the power allows to turn on the internal heaters, to access the other functions of the unit, (the melter was being used to provide enough internal heat to run the functions. note if the heater is not run, some parts might not work..
Its an incremental game, but has a logical flow to it.
The eventual goal is to re-launch the unit back into space, to return to earth, and submit its findings, BUT the game should allow for varied styles of play. maybe even improving the drills, and reconfiguring the 3D plans to make more effective machinery to unlock other aspects. Maybe even replicating the whole rocket system and converting the comet into a rocket.
No Aliens needed. just what's available in 2023.
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