Kepler Protocol

Kepler-186e, 9 November 1989. The Kaiserreich has landed. Nobody asked the planet.

Ash plains, spore fields, lava rifts. What began as an expedition is now a colony fighting for its next week. Water is scarce, Flux power is precious, and beneath the surface the Ordo Arachnis stirs: a swarm that does not see the colonists as guests, but as something to be removed.

Kepler Protocol is turn-based strategy about hard survival, played week by week. Every week counts, every soldier counts. A careless commander will not last long.

A world with height. The world map is a tilted 3D landscape. Ridges block sight, slopes slow columns, rifts become choke points. What you do stays on the map: roads, construction sites, tracks, scorched ground, graves.

Supply is a front of its own. Find water, tap Flux veins, build roads and keep the columns moving. A colony without supply starves long before the swarm arrives. Far ahead waits the Kaiserreich's great goal: the planetary core drill.

An enemy with no commander. The Ordo Arachnis follows no orders, only chemistry: a pheromone field that every brood follows on its own. Nobody decides, yet the swarm flows like an army ant raid. It grows first, then it bites. The heavy castes appear only when the hive is large enough.

Every loss has weight. The dead and the wounded are not the same, and morale breaks before the line does. Battles are fought out on the spot, and you watch them unfold.

War as it was fought. The Kaiserreich fights like an army of 1917 that ended up on a foreign planet. Field guns are drawn by horse teams, limbered and unlimbered, and stand behind the infantry line. A shell takes longer the farther it flies, and every bullet travels from the muzzle to where it lands. Each soldier takes cover behind what really stands in the line of fire. Trenches are dug by the men who hold them, and they stay.

A world with physics. Every week has its wind. It drives fire across the spore fields, carries spore clouds and pushes the smoke of battle into your line of sight. Set a fire with the wind and the field burns down fast; against a strong wind the flames will not jump at all.

Dark science fiction. A distant empire, gas masks in the open, violet-black grass under a foreign sun. No heroic poses. Just a colony trying to see another week.

Features

Turn-based strategy, week by week, on a tilted 3D world map with height, line of sight and fog of war
Hard survival: water, food, Flux power and supply decide whether the colony lives
A swarm with no commander: enemy behaviour that emerges from a pheromone field
The swarm matures: first it grows, then the heavy castes arrive
Visible work: construction sites, columns, tracks and scars stay on the map
Battles fought out on the spot, with dead, wounded and broken morale
Fought like 1917: horse-drawn guns, trenches, cover behind what stands in the line of fire
A wind every week: fire, spore clouds and battle smoke drift with it
Distinct maps, each with its own terrain and its own dangers
Dark sci-fi atmosphere with its own music and soundscape

Made by a single developer. Early Access means you play now and help shape what comes next.