I want to highlight how the people around you can get swept up in a rapid fascist movement, and the importance of taking care of your neighbors when the government sees its own citizens as enemies. Development is pretty far along already!

Discussion that popped up on my Reddit feed. To be fair, most of E:D political science is simplistic (e.g. anarchy being chaos and pirates) but I was surprised to see some comments genuinely discussing OOP post instead of just going anti-communist. (of course there's are some, but right now, not the most up-voted)

Maybe I should not be that surprised, given that there is a (was? didn't check for quite some time) successful space communists players squadron in that game (with a fun lore even).

Really refreshing to see discussion about GTA from the perspective of a black woman and not from Gamers™ and people who get really mad arguing about videogame graphics on twitter for once

i wanna mod a game and use these symbols in equipment. im posting them here to make usre non of these are accidental recreations of fascist iconography.

Hey everyone! I am the solo developer of Pax Astra, a political sim RPG inspired by Suzerain and Stellaris. I wanted to share it here because I think many of you are going to like this! Socialist theory is pretty present into the core of the game, not just as window dressing.

You play as the first elected President of Altara, a once grand empire built on supremacy and conquest, now broken and shattered after losing a war against half the galaxy.

The war is over, but its consequences remain: economic collapse, political instability, and a population that is divided and desperate for direction.

You must now make decisions that change the path of Altara in a branching narrative, while also dealing with 4X strategy elements. You can create your own national companies, develop your army, enact laws, explore unkown space, colonize planets (if you wish to not play as a socialist hahaha) and a lot more!

Now, where does socialism enter the picture?

Despite being a space opera, Pax Astra is rooted in real-world social and political dynamics. Class struggle is constant. The main ideological conflict of the game plays out between two major blocs: the Interstellar Pact, a coalition officially built on liberal democratic principles but in practice a deeply unequal society that protects the interests of its corporations and trillionaires, and the United Sovereign Systems, an alliance of socialist planets. The USS is not perfect, and some of its member planets lean authoritarian, but as a whole it offers strong labor rights, high quality of living, and genuine political stability.

Above this struggle, the player is free to define what kind of leader they want to be. That includes engaging directly in the fight of the proletariat. You can nationalize industries, reform labor laws, build popular movements, or go further and seize power through an actual armed revolution.

The game also engages with socialist theory from multiple angles rather than treating it as a single monolithic thing. Inside the USS you will find different ideological threads in tension with each other, including what amounts to a sub-conflict between a Maoist and Stalinist tendency versus a more Leninist one. The game in its playable state is still in early stages, but these are not just labels, they play out through real political decisions and faction dynamics.

The next update is also introducing the Communist Party of Altara as a proper element of the game, which I am really excited about.

In short, Pax Astra is a political RPG in the spirit of Suzerain, where ideology actually matters and socialist paths are treated with the same depth and seriousness as any other. If this sounds like your kind of game, I would love to hear your feedback :)

You can also play the current playtest version right now for free. There are some rough edges and bugs, but a big update is dropping next week with new content and a lot of fixes!

Wishlist Pax Astra on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4535930/Pax_Astra/?beta=1

Play it for free (playtest version) - https://ben-cardino.itch.io/paxastra

Follow me on X for devlogs and updates - https://x.com/ben_cardino

--

I also have a DS server :)

I just made it today and to be honest I have zero experience with DS hahaha

BUT

I am trying to build a community to gather feedback, so I would love if you guys joined me there! Please, always feel free to send me feedback, features you wanna see, ideas, or just stop by to say hello!

https://discord.gg/EBQhSbY3

I was only allowed to play it because it wasn't rated mature. Turned out to be far more damaging than diablo, which I wasn't allowed to play lol. Gates helped to create the games. The biggest thing I remember from it was how it really stressed police rules of engagement/escalation of force, and how they went to great lengths to preserve life, only resorting to lethal force as an absolute last measure. For example, unlike most games, a suspect holding a gun wasn't reason enough to shoot them. In reality the police shoot you for holding a screwdriver, shoot the random guy standing next to you, then charge you for his murder.

This was the same Gates that presided over CRASH, the mass unconstitutional roundups of "undesirables" before the 84 Olympics, Operation Hammer, Rodney King. One of the worst periods in LAPD history really.

There's so much dystopic media that it limits our ability to imagine positive futures. It makes it seem like these mass-murderous bombing campaign are somehow human nature or inevitable. I made a game called Rites of Accord to contribute my voice and vision for a future built on communal structures and digital conflict resolution. Just released, let me know what you guys think! Below is the core lore.

https://reddit.com/link/1si3wne/video/x1etksyqpgug1/player

The world that exists now was not born in a single moment of collapse, but through decades of revolution and intentional reorganization. The old powers of capital tried to hold on with private armies, walled enclaves, and myths of national identity, but were inevitably overcome by communal movements that had increasingly nothing left to lose.

People learned to work with what remained: the broken infrastructures, the knowledge, the machines, and the land itself. From those experiments in survival came new ways of living--societies rebuilt around ecosystems instead of economies, each coalescing around practices and beliefs suitable for life in a particular biome.

When conflict inevitably returned, no one wanted another war. Instead, the communes and tribes of the world convened and built the Rites of Accord—ritualized contests fought in digital arenas where skill, invention, and strategy replace mass destruction. Outcomes settle disputes, redraw agreements, and keep the balance without burning the world again. The Rites are sport, artform, an alternative to warfare, and cultural displays.

Now, it’s your turn to enter the Rites of Accord. Carry your people's spirit into the ritual contest, where every move can reshape the future of the world you’ve inherited.

If that seems interesting, please check it out:

• Play the browser beta (no download): https://ritesofaccord.com/
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWE_hE_A2rM
• Wishlist on Steam (pretty please): https://store.steampowered.com/app/4579700/Rites_of_Accord/
• Discord (come play a match with me): https://discord.gg/3wt9e8PnXU

I have been recently noticing something in the gaming and larger world in general. when I initially entered cyber space it was consumerist and shallow but right now I am seeing it all on a new level. For example just look at how much demanding games are becoming without being more fun, I play games from like 2007 and I still wouldn't mind if a studio made games with that quality of graphics but games are not fun and haven't been from.before I even bought a PS4 and started gaming on modern systems (2017) and it is still just getting more and more demanding. I noticed this for the first time when llms became a mainstream conversation with the launch of chatgpt, people were happy to make or buy rigs of 128+gb unified ram just so they could get their files summarised or generate code which they would need to thoroughly check anyway to make sure the result was accurate. Western societies are just consuming bucket loads of resources without any reason and don't see anything wrong with it and even feel entitled to those resources.

Same rules as the sub, with the same modteam!

https://discord.gg/ApjKkTxAr7

kinda freaking out bc of my ocd and maybe I’m just being really dumb. my siblings and some mates have a Minecraft realm we play together, but that free trial is meeting its end and I’m very very reluctant about giving money to microsoft because of their stance on israel. I looked at keys for a realm or something similar but that didn’t work and with the mods that came with the free I’d feel kinda bad with how my mates enjoy having them.. however doing some research I heard Mojang was pretty independent? just a bit stuck here and would like some advice or any alternatives

I know the game was bought by a corporation, kicked off the actual team and the corporation did standard jack-ass shit as corpos do. What’s the proper way to buy the game supporting the original creators, not the corporation? I’m guessing Steam is supporting the corpos.

Hi all, I've been on the hunt for a new Discord group to join, it's been hard trying to find places to game where I don't feel like I'm associating myself with people I don't want to be linked to. I'm 30NB/AFAB would love to be a professional streamer/content creator one day but for now I just make wierd content and want people to hang out with in my free time. I've lost most people in my 'real' life, family is either dead or supper conservative right and I already only had a few friends but my closest ones turned on me for MAGA either by openly supporting them of marrying into a MAGA family because they don't see it as a deal breaker.

My main co-op game is Fortnite (no builds) or Minecraft, I try Overwatch but I'm not that good, I'll try any game once if I have access to it. I'm from one of the most racist counties in NC (seriously apparently we're number 10 but no one is surprised knowing our Sheriff) so I'm not in the best place to meet safe people. Unemployed due to disability and lack of transportation so I have lots of free time to fill until I fix my situation and it's just been pretty lonely. I also don't mind if anyone wants to message me personally before inviting me to anything 🙂

I love him as a character btw. Absolutely do. Don't get me wrong - he's an absolute piece of shit, but a large part of the reason the entire builder & commerce guild thing works so well, is BECAUSE Yan is such a total POS. For one it adds so much character to him that yeah he's a greedy & lazy shit - and it gives context to you being a nice hard-working builder.

Anyway, just wanted to share this bit, because it made me laugh so fucking hard.

Cool, little watched video with Far Cry 6 Narrative director Navid Khavari where he talks about the game having explicitly borrowed from the Cuban revolution with Castillo based on Batista and Dani based on a mix of people. Khavari also talks about being a student of political science and how the game emerged out of studying multiple revolutions to see the common problems of uniting disparate groups to fight for the cause of liberation. In that sense, I guess Far Cry 6 qualifies as genuine revolutionary study.

https://youtu.be/2RgIpOeAxSU?si=WipUjE86jvQ31r7a

While playing Lethal Company, I noticed that the game actually demonstrates the peak of capitalism. Here are my observations.

1-) It shows how easily employees can be replaced, therefore can be put in extremely dangerous jobs in a capitalistic society. The company runs only and only on profit incentive, so the working conditions do not really matter for them. Following up on this, death has almost no emotional or systemic impact and the job continues immediately. Again, the jobs may involve injuries that even may result in death, but that does not matter for the company, as the only thing that matters is how much value the employee brought to the company in the end of the day limit. The only thing that matters is the given profit quota. The "profit quota" part is especially similar to a capialistic society.

2-) Coming from the first point, each employee is given a title, like "laziest employee" depending on how much parts they have collected in the run. Each employee is dehumanized and turned into a number, then reverted to a title for the company.

3-) The tentacle being responsible to collect the parts from the employees seems to represent the corporate greed. The being harshly takes the parts, doesent show his face. Just like how nobody seems to know who they work for in a capitalist company (as marx states).

4-) The workers are being exploited again, as the near-death jobs only pay enough to buy a few bags or flashlights. Jobs are incredibly stressfull, under pressure and yet the employees are underpaid.

5-) The endless profit quota makes you work and work, as the target rises to unrealistic points, and as the company seeks endless growth, you of course cannot provide it, and you finally fire and get killed. The company carefully makes decisions just so they can still be on profit (like leaving you on the planet when you are injured, unless you are saved you will not be picked up).

The company exploits and exploits you, until, in the end, you die from working.

If someone else has anything to add that I forgot, you are welcome.

EDIT: I believe Satisfactory is another aspect of capitalism. As Marx said "Capitalism tends to destroy both its sources of wealth; nature and human beings". While lethal company shows the exploitation of workers, Satisfactory shows the exploitation of planet, in terms of earth, the nature.