Eager robo interns can now and apply for a closed beta test featuring over 30% of the game
Copychaser Games, and narrative games label, Fellow Traveller, announced today that they are releasing Times & Galaxy on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 as well as PC in Q2 2024. Eager interns can apply now for the closed beta test on Steam that will feature the entire first third of the game.
Developed by former journalists, Times & Galaxy is a funny, heartfelt adventure about space aliens and the richness of the stories that make up their everyday lives. Set in a solar system full of space lizards (augers), goo people (xeel), robots and other assorted species including humans, players step into the shoes of an intern at the system’s most trusted holopaper, the Times & Galaxy. They embark on assignments across the galaxy, meeting a colorful cast of over 100 alien weirdos and reporting at hyper-speed on important hyper-local stories such as the Humania Dirt Fair or a Space Ghost Funeral! Their goal – keeping their job at the end of the internship and winning a coveted spot on the permanent team.
The staff of the Times & Galaxy don’t work from home, they live at work! Specifically they live and work on the Scanner, a huge starship/newsroom converted from a decommissioned warship. In between assignments, players will build (or break) relationships with their fellow reporters and the ship’s crew. Across a story of more than 200,000 words, the choices they make on and off the record will impact both the direction of the paper and how their colleagues feel about them.
And here’s a scoop for you! Copychaser Games and Fellow Traveller are running a closed beta on PC from February 19th until March 11th to help with editorial balancing, bug catching, and narrative polish. The beta is three times larger than the demo and will feature the first third of the game. Players who want to sniff out news ahead of Times & Galaxy’s launch will need to fill in this form to apply for beta access.
Copychaser Games is helmed by Ben Gelinas, a former crime reporter who went on to write for games including Control, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Mass Effect: Andromeda. Ben founded the studio to “make weird indie games” like their debut title, Speed Dating for Ghosts.
Stepping things up for their second game, with support from the Canadian Media Fund and publisher Fellow Traveller, Times & Galaxy was born of a love of local journalism and seeing how players of BioWare’s games loved the relationships between characters as much as, or even more than the combat and adventure. Blending in inspirations from the structure of television sitcoms, pulpy sci-fi shows, and the real-life newsroom experiences of the writing team, the result is an intergalactic tale told at a personal scale with relationships and reputation at its heart.
