Unnamed planet

In the Interstellar Text Adventure Game, the player and their robotic companion PLEX land on a potentially habitable planet. The planet is unnamed.

Artist's conception of the unnamed planet

Planetary information

Earth norm gravity. Earth norm diameter. Surface temp: 34.4 C (94F)

Geology

The sky is described as red and the ground is described as brown and black. The black being a kind of black shale. The sky is populated by thick, grey stratoculumous clouds. A large red sphere behind the clouds is the new sun.

In the north lies a great mesa that consists of serrated limestone spears known as obelisks which create a maze.

1,000 meters to the south of the Landing Pod is a precipitous cliff face.

Far to the west, the black shale gives way to dark brownish mud. In this area, the player speculates that these mudflats could be a windwatt which could determine a water source.

Looking east through the binoculars, you catch sight of something that makes your jaw drop: rising out of a rubble field is a giant, cathedral-like outcropping made of glossy black, hexagonal basalt columns extending at least 100 meters into the sky. The cluster of columns on each tier of the outcropping are uniform in size and seemingly fused together. You are blown away by the flawlessness of the columns. The symmetry makes it seem like some entity carved the whole thing into existence. But you know basalt is a volcanic rock, and when the lava cooled, it contracted to form the shape of the various columns. Since water can play a part in the formation of the columns by cooling the lava flows, it would be wise to head over to the outcropping and investigate it up close. Climbing to one of the higher tiers may provide the best window from which to collect data.

Text Adventure game

Towards the end of the game, an earthquake strikes and changes the landscape to the point that renders it unrecognizable. The player recovers attempts to recover the four probes they placed around the area and return to their landing pod, however, depending on the choices the player made in the game, the probes may be damaged due to the earthquake. The probe(s) had enough data to conclude that the planet was in fact uninhabitable. The player asks PLEX to seal him in his cryo to await a rescue that will never come.

If, however, all the probes survived, then PLEX wakes him up around a month later. Outside, a Jupiter-sized planet has been tidally heating the planet, changing the eccentricity of it's orbit, causing the planet to careen into the Roche limit of the star. Eventually, the player plants the Lazarus flag as the planet is destroyed.