After years of iteration, Spaceship Adventures has found its true north: Hoshi no Isan (星の遺産 — Children of the JAXA Legacy). A Japanese-aesthetic space visual novel and crew RPG set aboard a JAXA Heritage Ship. This is the game we've been building toward — and the one we're committed to finishing.
What Changed
Spaceship Adventures began in 2010 as a multi-player spaceship simulation — ambitious, sprawling, and increasingly difficult to scope as a solo developer. Over the years we explored solar systems, space stations, warp ships, and education platforms. Each iteration taught us something. But we never quite found the story we wanted to tell.
Then we asked a different question: What if the ship itself was the story? Not just a vessel for gameplay, but a living museum of Japan's greatest space missions. A place where every corridor honors a real spacecraft. Where every crew member is a descendant of a real pioneer.
Why Japan? Why JAXA?
Japan's space program produced some of the most extraordinary engineering stories ever told — spacecraft that refused to fail, missions that waited years for a second chance, rovers that landed upside down and still completed their objectives. Hayabusa limped home across two billion kilometers on a single engine. Akatsuki waited five years for its second chance at Venus. SLIM landed with pinpoint accuracy, inverted. Almost none of these stories have been told in gaming.
JAXA's legacy deserves an audience beyond the mission teams. Hoshi no Isan is our attempt to change that.
The Core Concept
You are the new commanding officer of the Yamabiko — a JAXA Heritage Ship crewed by the children and grandchildren of Japan's most celebrated space pioneers. Each deck is named after a mission. Each crew member carries their ancestor's philosophy, specialty, and a personal story waiting to be unlocked. Your role is to lead them into a fantastical space frontier while honoring the history written into the ship's walls.
"The ship is not just where the story happens. The ship is the story. Every compartment is a shrine. Every crew member is a descendant."
This is not a combat game. It is a game about care — for your crew, for the stories they carry, and for the vast, beautiful unknown ahead of you.
What's Next
We're building in public. Solo. Unreal Engine 5. Blueprints. The full Game Design Document is live. The website has been relaunched to reflect the new direction. And we're documenting every step in this Dev Journal. If that sounds like something worth following, welcome aboard.
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