When I played an early build of Stranded: Alien Dawn, I wiped out my entire crew. Not only did I fail to protect my poor interstellar backpackers, but I pushed each and every one of them to the brink of sanity – a nightmare scenario that culminated in a horde of giant flesh-eating bugs systematically tearing my colony limb-from-limb. In the end, I couldn't decide if lasting just 10 in-game days on the Red Planet was an achievement or a brutal punishment. A week-and-a-bit isn't long for a holiday, but it sure as shit feels like a lifetime when you're starving, sleep deprived and losing your mind.
Through all of this, believe it or not, I loved my time with Stranded: Alien Dawn. At its core, it's a planet survival sim from the same dev team who worked on Surviving Mars, and Tropico 3, 4 and 5, among many other similarly-styled strategy games. But, crucially, Stranded: Alien Dawn is also a storytelling RPG, wherein players are given the tools to create, and the autonomy to succeed or fail.
