Short overview
"After Mars." is a literary narrative RPG with no combat, set in a fading town on Mars. Play as a junior Commissioner sent to investigate local cases through dialogue, evidence, disputes, and official reports. Decide what becomes truth in a place where history never fully ended.
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Not the Mars you expect
This is not a world of clean domes, heroic pioneers, and shiny sci-fi certainty.
Jazin is a Martian town built from extraction, patronage, revolution, and compromise. Its air is held by old infrastructure. Its politics are local, bitter, and unfinished. Its children draw history on the ground because there is no paper to waste. Above it all looms the Mammoth — a colossal burned machine that still decides too much.
Mars is not a frontier here. It is already lived in.
What you do
As a Commissioner, you are sent to review three local cases:
a conflict over the fate of the Mammoth
a dangerous contraction of the town’s safe zone
a set of breathing complaints that official science dismisses
To resolve them, you will:
speak with citizens, officials, workers, believers, and local eccentrics
gather testimony, samples, records, and conflicting documents
use disputes, warrants, and requests to the capital to make progress
solve practical local problems, not just abstract mysteries
decide what conclusions can be formally filed
Each case begins small. None of them stays that way.
A document-driven RPG
"After Mars." is built around narrative systems instead of combat systems.
You do not clear dungeons or chase loot. You read, compare, inspect, argue, classify, and report.
Core interactions include:
Dialogue with branching responses and skill-gated options
Disputes, where evidence and social leverage matter
Warrants, used for practical interactions with the world
Requests to the capital, which may return delayed answers
Cases, which collect evidence and eventually become formal reports
Conditions, time passage, and local routines that shape how the town is navigated
Your companion, CAR-TER, is not a voice in your head or a comic sidekick. It is a field terminal: part witness, part machine bureaucracy, always present when the town needs to be read, recorded, or argued with.
Key features
A literary narrative RPG focused on writing, tone, and human contradiction
No combat — progress comes through observation, dialogue, evidence, and choice
Three interconnected main cases that unfold into a larger local crisis
A distinctive Martian setting shaped by air cores, old infrastructure, and post-revolutionary culture
A document-based structure where reports and classifications matter as much as discoveries
A diegetic interface built around your terminal companion, CAR-TER
Meaningful local politics without simple heroes or villains
Exploration through atmosphere and detail, from counterfeit bird-sound devices to named town trees, regolith drawings, and shrinking district borders
Choices that shape official truth, not just private morality
Tone
"After Mars." is melancholic, strange and humane. It is inspired by literary fiction and narrative RPGs that take people seriously.
It is about:
what remains after ambition
what survives after systems fail
how institutions shape memory
and how ordinary people keep living inside decisions they never got to make
Current state
The game is currently in development.
The narrative foundation, setting, and core systems are defined, and work is underway on prototype content, writing, visuals, and a vertical slice.
If the project speaks to you, please consider wishlistling, following updates, and joining the community.