Proxima Centauri — GDD

Mission Brief

The Wrong End of the Telescope

Proxima Centauri is a narrative survival RPG about first contact from the wrong end of the telescope. Earth is dying under overpopulation. The moon colonization program has formally failed. A coalition of world governments pools trillions into a single mandate: find a planet. Six specialists are sent. What they find changes everything — including what kind of species they decide to be.

The player manages shifting perspectives across crew members — each carrying different knowledge, different loyalties, and different breaking points. One of them is actively working against the mission from inside it. The locked POV system is the point: everyone on this mission is operating with an incomplete picture of what is actually happening.

The central question is not whether humanity belongs here — but whether its worst instincts will follow it across the stars.

Inciting Incident

Seth McLovin analyzes what he believes to be a rock formation. It is feces. He reports to Earth immediately. Proxima Centauri is already occupied.

Earth Condition — Pre-Mission

Critical population threshold. Moon colonization formally declared failure. World governments pooled trillions into one mandate. This is the most expensive mission in human history. There is no backup plan.

Mission Manifest

The Crew

Six astronauts. Four years of joint training. Zero preparation for what they would find. One of them had already decided this mission would not succeed before it launched.

I

Commander / Pilot

John Smith

The Gravitational Center

The mission lead. Decisive, reliable — the person the crew orients around when protocols collapse. His authority erodes progressively as circumstances spiral past anything he was trained for. Whether he survives is not guaranteed. A single mid-game choice determines his fate, and a saved John unlocks the only ending where someone chooses to sacrifice themselves so that everyone else gets out.

His arc is about the cost of being the person everyone else leans on. What happens when the weight finally exceeds him.

II

Xenobiologist

Seth McLovin

The Accidental Trigger

His identification of the fecal sample starts everything. Competent in his discipline, completely unequipped for survival-level crisis. He panics when action is needed. He freezes when time runs out. Choosing Seth as the final endgame character leads exclusively to a failure state — not from cowardice, but from fear dominating the exact moments it cannot afford to.

He is not a coward. He is a scientist forced to be a soldier. The game does not punish him for that. It just shows the outcome.

III

Environmental Engineer

Ruolan Shui

The Saboteur

The hidden antagonist and most morally complex figure. An environmental activist who watched Earth deteriorate and refuses to let humanity replicate the pattern on a new world. She has been misplacing samples, breaking equipment, and has covertly destroyed the planetary radio transmitter. She loves Marrisa. She has never fired a weapon and refuses to start. Every act of sabotage is indirect — and she will steal an alien infant trying to build a bridge between species, which triggers the final assault.

She is not wrong about what humanity does to places it finds. The game does not tell you she is wrong. It just shows you what her conviction costs.

IV

Geologist / Mineralogist

Marrisa Stark

The Other Side of the Choice

Combat-capable and mission-focused. The emotional axis of the late game. Her relationship with Ruolan is the engine of the finale. The choices given to Marrisa in the endgame determine whether anyone escapes, whether Ruolan lives, and what kind of future Earth inherits from this mission.

Her hardest ending requires her to do something she cannot undo, for reasons she cannot argue against.

V

Mechanical Engineer

Carl Tyson

The First Loss

One of the Tyson brothers. Combat-capable. Responsible for base construction. He and March disappear on the third week of exploration sweeps, the first major crisis of the mission — and the event that puts the entire crew on the T-1 civilization's radar. They are presumed dead. They are.

His death is not dramatic. He vanished during a routine sweep. That is almost the point.

VI

Systems Engineer

March Tyson

The Accidental First Contact

Carl's brother. The Tyson brothers stumbled upon a pregnant T-1B alien during labor. Their instinct to protect themselves from the protective mother got them both killed. Their encounter confirmed to the T-1 civilization that something foreign had arrived on their planet. Everything that follows in this game traces back to that single moment.

He did not know what he was walking into. Nobody does, the first time.

Field Intelligence

Alien Classification

The crew develops an internal taxonomy to categorize what they encounter. Intelligence tier first, biological designation second. Functional. Clear. Increasingly inadequate for what they are actually dealing with.

Intelligence Tier

T1

Intelligent. Sapient, on par with or superior to humans. Capable of organized strategy and coordinated group response. They will plan the assault on the base.

T2

Non-Intelligent. Wild, instinct-driven. Dangerous due to physicality, not tactics. T-1 intelligence will use them as ground forces.

T3

Passive / Docile. Non-threatening. Generally avoid all contact entirely.

T4

Aggressive to all life indiscriminately. No allegiances. Equal-opportunity threat — including to the T-1.

Biological Designation

— A

Male. Appended to tier classification (T-1A, T-2A, etc.).

— B

Female. The pregnant T-1B during labor triggers the Tyson brothers' deaths. The T-2B that mauls John is the primary mid-game physical threat.

— C

Uncategorized. Unknown or ambiguous biology. Insufficient observational data.

FIELD INCIDENTS ON RECORD
T-1B Pregnant — Week 3. Tyson brothers KIA.
T-2B — Field mauling. John Smith. Mid-game.
T-1 Infant — Removed by Ruolan. Triggers assault.

Field Note — Week 3

INCIDENT ANALYSIS

Mission Internal

Assessment

The T-1 civilization did not attack unprovoked. The Tyson brothers walked into a birth. The T-1B was protecting her child. Every hostile action on this planet traces back to something the crew did first. The aliens are not villains. They are parents reading an unknown species as an existential threat — and so far, every piece of evidence has confirmed that reading.

Mission Timeline

How It Unfolds

I

Arrival & Build

The crew lands and begins sandbox-style base construction — free-form within mission protocol limits. Three months in, Seth confirms alien biological material. The mood of the entire mission changes immediately. They report to Earth. The search begins.

II

The Search

The crew splits into three rotating pairs — one always at base, two sweeping in opposite cardinal directions per week. Week one: nothing. Week two: nothing. Week three: the Tyson brothers go silent mid-sweep. Contact is never reestablished. They are presumed dead. They are. The T-1 civilization now knows the humans are here.

III

Escalation

A forced breach of the outer gate — John and Marrisa investigate, expecting debris. Ruolan destroys the long-range planetary transmitter. Earth's silence is read as deliberation. Ruolan steals a T-1 infant to attempt cross-species communication. An atmospheric fog rolls in — cyclical, every 68 Earth days. The crew has survived it before. They do not know what the T-1 have organized inside it this time.

IV

The Assault

Under cover of the third fog cycle, the T-1 lead a coordinated strike using T-2 creatures as ground forces. The base is breached. The choices that follow determine which endings become reachable. This game is not about surviving the attack. It is about what the survivors decide humanity gets to be.

Choice Architecture

Perspective & Choice

The player cannot freely switch characters. The game controls all POV transitions based on narrative context. All six crew members are playable. Each inhabits a different layer of knowledge about what is actually happening. Before the final act, the player selects which character carries them into the endgame.

Transmission — PCB-001

CHOICE ARCHITECTURE LOG

Internal Design Doc

POV System

Locked — game-controlled
No free switching

Playable Characters

All 6 crew members
Different info per POV

Final Character Options

Marrisa Stark
Ruolan Shui
Seth McLovin

Seth Path Result

Failure state only
Fear dominates at critical moments

Marrisa — Final Choices

Kill Ruolan and return to Earth — Earth receives habitability data. Decades later, colonization begins. An elderly Marrisa sits at Ruolan's grave. The alien child is on Earth, subjected to experimentation.

Refuse to kill Ruolan — die together on the planet. Earth never receives confirmation. The mission is listed as lost.

Save Ruolan and attempt escape together — triggers a secondary choice. If Ruolan stays, John (if saved earlier) forces them both out and sacrifices himself.

Ruolan — Final Choices

End herself alone, after everyone else — no survivors, no data. Earth classifies the planet as too dangerous for colonization. The planet is left alone.

Attempt final negotiation with the T-1 — return the infant, communicate peace. They read it as provocation. The entire crew is killed. No one survives to explain what was intended.

John — Mid-Game Branch

John is attacked and mauled by a T-2B. Ruolan is present. If she saves him, a new ending unlocks — John sacrifices himself in the finale so that both Marrisa and Ruolan escape. If she does not, his storyline ends immediately and that ending is permanently removed from the pool.

Mission Outcomes

What Survives

Marrisa Path · John Saved

The Grave

Marrisa kills Ruolan. She and John escape to Earth. Earth receives the habitability data. Decades pass. Colonization begins. The alien child is on Earth, experimented on. An elderly Marrisa sits at Ruolan's grave. The planet is settled. The cycle continues.

"She made the choice that saved humanity. She has not stopped paying for it."

Marrisa Path · Refusal

Together on the Planet

Marrisa refuses to pull the trigger. Neither of them escape. The game ends on the planet, with both of them. Earth never receives confirmation. The mission is listed as lost.

"The hardest ending to choose. The only one that costs her nothing she cares about."

Ruolan Path · Sacrifice

Too Dangerous

Ruolan ends herself after everyone else. No survivors. No transmission. Earth classifies Proxima Centauri as too dangerous for colonization. The planet is left alone. The alien child is recovered by the T-1 civilization.

"She got what she came for. It cost her everything she loved."

Ruolan Path · Negotiation

Lost in Translation

Ruolan returns the infant and attempts to communicate peace. They read it as provocation. The entire crew is killed. The child is recovered. No one survives to explain what happened or what she meant by it.

"A gesture of peace. Received as provocation. Both things were true."

Addendum — Across All Paths

THE ALIEN CHILD

Design Documentation

Note

In every ending, the T-1 infant is eventually recovered by the alien civilization — with one exception. In the ending where Marrisa kills Ruolan and returns to Earth, the child is transported aboard the escape vessel and delivered to Earth, where it is subjected to scientific experimentation. This outcome is presented without editorial framing. The player's choice made it possible.

Themes

Core Arguments

The Indomitable Human Spirit — as a Curse

Ruolan's sabotage is not motivated by hatred of her crew. It is motivated by a clear-eyed terror of what humanity does when it finds something new. Her conviction frames human expansionism not as triumph but as plague. She is not wrong about the pattern. The game does not tell you she is wrong about the pattern.

Love Against Conviction

Ruolan trained with these people for four years. They are her second family. She loves Marrisa. She sabotages them anyway. The game refuses to resolve this contradiction cheaply — it holds both things at the same time and asks you to sit with a person who is right and wrong simultaneously.

First Contact as Misread Signal

Every hostile alien action in the game is a direct response to something the crew did first. The T-1 are not antagonists. They are parents and protectors reading an unknown species as an existential threat — and so far, every piece of evidence has confirmed that reading. The aliens are not wrong either.

Who Pays for Exploration

The Tyson brothers die because they witnessed something they weren't meant to see. The alien infant is taken for reasons that felt righteous. The cost of human curiosity is measured in other people's losses — and on Proxima Centauri, "other people" extends to an entire species that never asked to be found.

PCB-001 / MISSION LOG Proxima Centauri