Have you played StarCrawlers and if so what did you think of it? I never got the time to check it out but it seems like a game you would have given a shot.
I did back StarCrawlers on Kickstarter and I played it briefly, but must admit I didn't get into it, perhaps due to the art style and some other factors.
I don't want to be negative, when I welcome any such rare attempt at something I want so much more of, so I prefer not to criticize StarCrawlers.
However, in the interest of trying to help future developers of science fiction RPGs, I will say a couple of things... I would have preferred a bit more of a deep perspective in StarCrawlers, as emotional investment in science fiction, depends on humanity's relationship to the cosmos, to the wonder of deep time, history, science and engineering. We feel awe when we read about a civilization that chose to enter cryogenic stasis to escape the end of their world, because it has pathos; it is tragic, they displayed the virtue of foresight, perhaps too late, the strength of will to achieve their hopeless plan, but entered a cold and lonely eternity with little hope of revival until the stars grow cold. That is just one small example of the pathos of a dying world, the coldness of time, the wonders of engineering and science. As far as I could see after an hour or two, all the enemies in StarCrawlers were faceless AI, with no emotion, just smooth featureless robots getting knocked around. The protagonist was essentially a faceless spacesuit. Also I don't care about "corporations" or wars between faceless economic entities. We live and we die for our families and nations, for love, or to gain new knowledge, enlightenment, to explore, or to survive. This does not mean that I endorse the current obsession with subjective feelings and soap opera melodrama that is killing TV science fiction in the 2020s, but classics like Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Stargate, Farscape, etc, or even literary stuff like Dune or Revelation Space, all tried to show the deeper things we care about. Our sense of the sublime in science fiction, the sense of awe and discovery is linked to our ability to take those revelations and gain meaning, survive, or bring survival knowledge back to our peers. We don't get excited to start a game, to make money for a corporation (why should I care), but to explore.
"Who lives in that remote outpost?" "Who built this ancient derelict starship?" "Has anyone seen this cave in a billion years?" "What is the meaning of this alien monestary?"
These questions have meaning, because they are asked by a conscious being, relating to the depth of time in the cosmos, the coming and passing of civilization. An empty universe, pristine, but devoid of consciousness or of alien or human civilization, would have nothing to commend it, or apprehend it. We write our great literature, our poetry, make art, all in relation to the cosmos, and an empty planet is just a sterile rock until it is touched by conscious civilization giving it meaning. Then a canyon not seen by a single bacteria in 6 billion years, becomes "Sher'Hala's Tomb" or the site of "The Battle of Long Claw" or home to the "Temple of Enlightenment" or the "Ruined City of Galakesh" , or simply a nameless place where you clung to survival, when touched by history. Games don't have to attempt any grand story, and story is often a detriment to something that is mainly gameplay, but you can tell a lot of this environmentally. I'm already liking the pixel art of this one, so wish them all the best.
P.S. I guess this is a horror game, so more akin to Alien, than say Star Trek, but I think the fundamentals of why we care about sci-fi are the same, with the Alien derelict on LV426, the sense of industrial scale or decay onboard the Nostromo, and the unknown origin of the Xenomorph in the depths of time. For me, say, The Flood in Halo, were always much more boring than The Covenant, who have culture and history. It's because they were largely just faceless bugs, and bugs are less interesting than sentient things; it's more like fighting a 3D printer than a civilization.
A game I thought recently made decent use of sci-fi, was Crying Suns:
My favorite revival of Eye of the Beholder style games is Legend of Grimrock:
There is an excellent sense of isolation, lonely wonder, in Legend of Grimrock.
