Seedship

This twine piece uses extensive procedural generation to simulate the experience of an AI selecting a planet for the iced human colonists aboard.

The UI really shines: a sidebar lists important data with healthy values in green, and each planet appears with a list of variables that make it suitable or inhospitable to human colonization.

Some planets have anomalies, and randomized events are encountered between planets. These typically give you a binary choice between a known penalty or reward and an unknown penalty or reward. The planets may have random features that can be useful to investigate up close, with a consumable probe.

The prose isn't always world-class, but this is a strong piece highlighting some great uses of procedural generation. Highly recommended.

Seedship is one of those rare games where every little choice you make adds up to one great big one. On the surface, playing as the AI governing a vast interstellar colony ship, you visit a series of planets and decide at each stop along the way whether to end your journey and make that place a home, or press on to the next one in the hopes it might be better. When you land, you'll be treated to a little story about how your colonists fare in the place you've chosen for them. So far, so simple.

The problem with this process is that the ship deteriorates gradually over time. If holding out for the ideal planet means smashing into it with no landing gear and half the scientific database erased, then it may well have been wiser to settle on a less hospitable world while you were better equipped to rebuild.

Despite the apocalyptic premise and the vast scale of the journey involved, Seedship takes nearly no time at all to play. Some of the most interesting outcomes are those where you choose to settle on a hostile planet while you still have enough technology to cope with the conditions, though if you prefer to aim for the highest possible score then you'll likely spend much longer trying for that perfect planet.

This is a web-based game tracking several stats. You play as the AI in a seedship set to deliver colonists to a planet.

You visit many planets, hoping to find ones that are breathable, have water, are friendly, etc.

All sorts of events happen on your trip, but the game is mostly linear with mostly binary choices. There are some (fun) exceptions.

Overall, an enjoyable small game with great depth.