Nana's logbook (and some very patient Gardeners)

Every farming game needs a reason you’re out there with a hoe. In Nana’s Nebula, it starts with Nana.

Nana was out among the planets long before you were. She kept a logbook: notes, observations, half-finished thoughts, the occasional complaint about the soil on certain moons. It’s your thread through the Solar System. Follow it, and you’ll find yourself going places you wouldn’t have thought to visit.

And then there are the Gardeners. I’m going to stay deliberately vague about them, because they’re one of the things I most want players to discover for themselves. They’re not human, they’ve been around a long time, and they have an interest in what grows where. That’s all you’re getting.

The story is optional

This was a big one for me. You can follow the logbook, chase down the Gardeners and dig into the story. Or you can completely ignore all of it, never read a single entry, and spend your entire playthrough mining asteroids and selling ore. That’s allowed. There’s no nagging quest marker, and nobody will guilt-trip you.

Some of my favourite hours in games have been spent ignoring the plot entirely. I want people to be able to do that here.

One world, one speciality

Each farmable world in the Solar System has a speciality crop, the one thing that grows best there, and the first thing you’ll discover when you land. It gives every place a personality. It also gives you a reason to keep moving outward, because no single world can grow everything you need.

Then there are the gas giants. You can’t farm a gas giant. There’s no ground, for a start. But you can mine them for gas, which turns out to be valuable. I am aware of the jokes this invites. I’ve decided to embrace them.

Back on Earth

Home base is a fictional spaceport town: shops, a market, the café with its horoscopes, the Observatory, and the people you’ll get to know. Early on you process crops into basic products there. Fancier recipes come later, once the basics are working and I’ve stopped breaking them.

Nana’s notes have a lot more to say. You’ll have to read them yourself.