The character of a city builder can mean a lot of things, including actual characters, and that’s definitely the case for Beyond These Stars. But unlike games like Tropico which are defined by the colorful cast that help manage the player’s city, Beyond These Stars’ most interesting character might be the land players will be building on.
Developers from Balancing Monkey Games (namely Lia Patsakos, Anna Barham, and Emily Latta) spoke to Game Rant about that character, the space whale Kewa, and what flying through the cosmos means for Beyond These Stars.
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“Space Whales Are Cool.”
In Balancing Monkey’s earlier title, Before We Leave, space whales like Kewa were an antagonistic force. They were taking nibbles out of the planets the Peeps were trying to rebuild so they could launch into deeper space. Neither game poses these kinds of challenges as ones solved by violence, but by engineering, making Kewa’s role of shepherding Peeps in the sequel less surprising than it might seem at first blush.
Space whales are an iconic concept for cosmic life in science fiction, appearing in everything from Star Wars to Doctor Who. Still, the genesis of Balancing Monkey’s fixation on them was a happenstance: studio founder Sam Barham saw a lantern of a whale at the 2016 Midwinter Festival in Dunedin, New Zealand. That planted a seed that Barham followed for the challenges in Before We Leave and the land itself in Beyond These Stars, as the studio explained,
In the wise words of our creative director and studio founder, Sam Barham – “because Space Whales are cool.” …Or at least, that was the initial spark that lit the keg of
Beyond These Stars
. Exploring the gameplay and narrative implications of building on a sentient creature, particularly one that can
travel through space
, is the cornerstone of what makes our game exciting. Exploration, rejuvenation, and symbiosis together form a solid gameplay loop that keeps the player hooked – especially when you’re working with a genre that can get a little repetitive!
Kewa isn’t just an animal players build on, but a character unto itself. Kewa’s hopes and dreams are integral to the gameplay of Beyond These Stars. While developers were coy about what those hopes and dreams are, they did say that building trust and rapport with the whale will give players quests and story beats, as well as cautioned against mistreating Kewa lest the player’s exploration of space come to a sudden halt.
Kewa also has a relatable personality, insisting that they were much faster when it came to space travel in their youth, but old age even comes for space whales. Getting this kind of insight into Kewa also helps fill out an understanding of the space whales prominent in Before We Leave. Through this partnership, players of the previous title can gain a deeper understanding of the threats the Peeps faced before being neither malicious nor mindless, but simply alien and different. That struggle toward trust and understanding forms the basic gameplay tensions in Beyond These Stars.
Kewa Takes Players Beyond These Stars
Barham wanted the studio to act as a vehicle for change, and through Kewa, Beyond These Stars walks that walk. Compassion and understanding are critical to success in the game, and the game makes strong statements about what space exploration should be like. From the outset, being a nonviolent franchise was important to Balancing Monkey, be it Before We Leave approaching hungry space whales as an engineering problem or dealing with the needs of the Peeps, Kewa, and other NPCs in Beyond These Stars. It’s a Star Trek-esque philosophical take on space exploration.
Our emphasis on non-violence is fundamental to the games that we make. There’s no combat, no destruction of life that can be executed by the player. Tension and challenge are experienced through maintaining a delicate balance between the needs of the player, Kewa, and other NPCs.
Part of that is a non-colonialist approach to space exploration, the studio explained. Peeps won’t be able to just take resources, everything must be willingly given or connected to the ancestral homeworlds of their civilization. Even Kewa’s back is given, not claimed.
As Balancing Monkey eyes an Early Access release in 2025, with a galaxy to explore and aliens to meet, the approach it stresses to its players is one of mindfulness and compassion in the dark void between the stars, and the unknown reaches beyond them.
Beyond These Stars is in development.