About WHERE ARE THEY

[GAME] [VISION] [SUPPORT] [FAQ]

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WHERE ARE THEY is a roguelike, pixel-art space exploration game.
Your home planet is gone.
One seed ship escapes into the unknown.
Your mission: Find a new world. Adapt. Survive.

You can choose from multiple species (currently six, including Reptiloids and Amorphoids), each with different biological traits. To expand your chances of survival, you’ll rely on gene editing and terraforming technology.

Once you settle, the real challenge begins: Build a colony, manage resources, and survive whatever the universe throws at you. Or abandon everything… and escape again.

The current version is a single-player game, and in some ways a demo of what it could eventually become.
It’s short and a bit rough around the edges, but hopefully fun to play.

The long-term vision is much bigger: A shared, persistent multiplayer galaxy.

Some ideas and mechanics from the current version could carry over, but the overall gameplay would be very different.

All players exist in the same universe – bound by the speed of light.

• A galaxy ~7,000 light-years across
• Hundreds of millions of stars and planets
• Initially completely unexplored
• Messages can take months (real-time) to arrive
• Encounters between players are rare and meaningful
• Expansion can take years

Over time, players explore, expand, compete – and possibly destroy each other.

The result: a living experiment inspired by the Fermi Paradox and Dark Forest.

So far, WHERE ARE THEY has been a one-person project (with ~50 amazing beta testers along the way).

If you enjoy the game, tell others about it.
If you like the idea and want to be part of it:

1) Join Discord
The official WHERE ARE THEY Discord server is the best place to share feedback, report bugs and discuss ideas.

2) Support financially
👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/conanthelibrarian

Every contribution helps!

If you’d like to be listed as a supporter in future credits, just leave a note.

3) Help build the game

To realize the full vision, this project needs people:

• Gamers to help shape the core experience, develop ideas, and refine gameplay mechanics.
• Coders to help build and scale the project (and keep me from going bonkers).
• Artists to create proper pixel art, animations, and sound/music.
• Community builders to help grow the universe.

Want to help build this?
👉 hello@wherearethey.dev

What is WHERE ARE THEY?
WHERE ARE THEY is a sci-fi roguelike where you guide a surviving fragment of your species through space in search of a new home. You’ll explore unknown systems, adapt your biology or environment, and try to build a colony that survives. Temporarily.

Where can I play the game?
👉 https://wherearethey.dev/where-are-they/
It runs directly in your browser on most devices. A Play Store release is planned.

Will my progress be saved?
Saves are stored locally in your browser. If you switch browser or device, your savegames and highscores will likely be lost.

How do I report a bug?
Send an email to bugs@wherearethey.dev or join the Discord and report it there.

What inspired the game?
WHERE ARE THEY draws inspiration from games I’ve enjoyed myself: the survival tension of Oregon Trail, the humor of Monkey Island, the vision of No Man’s Sky, and the pressure and tone of Faster Than Light. It was also influenced by a small but brilliant mobile game called Seedship.

Who is behind the game?
ConanTheLibrarian (aka J.C. Zeller) – a Spain-based nerd.

How can I support the game?
Join the Discord, give feedback, or support financially via Buy Me a Coffee.

Is the game vibe coded?
No, the game is not vibe coded by any meaningful definition of the term. The gameplay, mechanics, story, ideas and events are 100% my own creation. As disclosed in the credits, an AI coding assistant (Gemini in Google AI Studio) was used to help structure and speed up development. In fact, the idea for this game has been sitting in my drawer for years – including scripts, wireframes, etc. What I lacked wasn’t the concept, but the time to manually build every screen and system from scratch. When AI tools became good enough, I used them to accelerate the process. Without that assistance, this project would likely still be a .doc file in the drawer instead of a playable game.

Was AI used for visuals and music?
Yes, the current pixel art (e.g. building icons) and music were created with AI tools (the exact models are listed in the credits). I’m not a big fan of relying on AI for those parts, but it was the only feasible option, as I don’t have the design skills to create them myself, nor the budget to hire professional artists. So for now, this is the most practical way to have visuals and a soundtrack at all. Interestingly, the soundtrack has been very well received by beta testers. So that part might actually stay – perhaps with some refinements. For the visuals, though, a future version would ideally feature real pixel art created by someone with actual talent.

Where can I listen to the soundtrack?
👉 https://youtu.be/ni6xphAqN0s

How does in-game time work?
In-game time started in the year 3042 on November 30, 2025 (12:00 UTC), when development began. Since then, one in-game year passes every real-world hour. When you start a run, your starting year is based on this global timeline.

What would time and space look like in multiplayer?
The 1 hour real-time = 1 in-game year system could also apply to a shared galaxy. At a scale of ~7,000 light-years, even signals traveling at light speed would take about 291 real days to cross the map. That means finding other players, communicating, or expanding across the galaxy would take years in real-time.