Game Design Braindump

Team Feel 

We want to elicit the feeling of being a part of a small, close knit team, like you get in a camp, LARP or escape room experience. For that to work, all the team members need to feel like they're pulling their weight, and we need to highlight group decision making.

This can happen at the weekly meetings, where we pop a comic and there's a group discussion. 

Crops and Things

You maybe start with some basic seeds, like potatoes. But you can find local varieties that have different properties. Fancy local potatoes. Etc..

Adding People

Should be a big deal, and a big resource / gameplay test to do it. Then you feel invested in the people you added. Hopefully haha. Perhaps you need to raise the whole colony to a comfort threshold, and build a place for the new person to live, before you can bring them on? We can comment on this at the weekly meeting.

Seasons or Not

Let's try it without, at first.

Celebrating Things, Creating Traditions

Would be great if you can have celebrations to call out gameplay milestones / achievements. Perhaps you can pick a type of food and an activity, and that sorta defines the celebration. Next year if you celebrate it again, you can embellish it a little more, and over time the tradition becomes more solid and more powerful.

Peril and Combat

What if we focus more on avoidance, evasion, traps, and building out the safe area, more like Subnautica? Perhaps there's still a little direct combat, for the little enemies, but there are big enemies that, at least for a period of time and perhaps indefinitely, you're unable to directly confront.