Ark Helior

The people who begin this journey will never see its end.

Their children will grow up beneath an artificial sky. Their grandchildren will inherit the systems that keep everyone alive. Generations later, someone will look toward a distant star and know that the decisions made centuries earlier brought them there.

Welcome aboard Helior.

ARK HELIOR is a Print & Play strategy game about guiding a generation ship through centuries of interstellar travel. Manage its systems, sustain its ecosystem, and care for a society whose entire world exists within the hull.

Across four interconnected boards, you will oversee the ship, its biosphere, its people, and the knowledge they need to carry forward. Every area depends on the others. A growing population provides more hands to work, but also needs more food, living space, and care. New technology can improve efficiency, while aging infrastructure demands attention and resources.

Each turn represents years of life aboard the ship. Your decisions must address immediate needs while preparing future generations for challenges they will inherit. Investing in education today may be what allows your descendants to repair a failing system decades later.

A separate scenario sheet records the voyage through a branching tree of events and decisions. At the end of each turn, mark the chosen path and carry its consequences forward, creating the history of your ship.

Inspired by scientific concepts of generation ships, ARK HELIOR combines long-term planning with the interconnected decisions of a complex flip & write game. Its hand-drawn watercolor artwork brings a human touch to a journey on an immense scale.

This campaign is raising funds to finish the game and make it available in additional languages.

ARK HELIOR is still in development. Your support will help me complete the remaining design work, refine and test the game, finish the artwork and layout, and prepare a clear rulebook with illustrated examples. It will also fund the translation and proofreading needed for additional language editions.

As an independent designer, I am bringing this project to Kickstarter so I can dedicate the time and resources it needs to reach completion. By backing the campaign, you are helping turn the game presented here into a finished Print & Play experience.

Build a world that can outlive its founders. Give the next generation a future among the stars.