All on board for Lifeship launch

In a future where humanity is on the brink of extinction, you and your crew are on one of the last colony ships to leave Earth. Your job? Survive, adapt and forge a future among the stars.

So begins Lifeship, a new tabletop game being developed by Ikarangi Labs, a team made up of Unicol Deputy Warden Chris Jacobs, his son and Otago tauira Odin Jacobs (Ngaati Whanaunga), Bradford Brizzell, and Otago alum and kaimahi Jesse Watts.

The idea for the game had been bouncing around in Chris’s head for some time, but it was a “eureka moment” a few years ago while playing another game that led to the team actively working on Lifeship.

“We decided to create the game we wanted to play,” Chris says.

“One that blends deep strategy, engaging combat and meaningful storytelling. What we wanted didn’t exist, so we made it.”

More about the game

These kinds of games aren’t created at warp speed. After three years of work for four people, several artists and an entire web development team, Lifeship is currently at the prototype stage, with hopes it will be available ahead of Christmas 2026.

The team plans to set up a Kickstarter campaign to help with manufacturing costs, which is a common funding model in the world of board games, Chris says.

“We’re living in a board game renaissance right now and the democratisation of design tools and the advent of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Gamefound have allowed for a huge variety of new board games.

“The community is used to waiting for games to be developed and to the idea that their support may be needed to complete the games they want to play.”

Odin – who’s in his third year of a BA majoring in philosophy – says the pandemic and the rise of programs like Tabletop Simulator mean board games have never been more accessible to make and play, and the distinction between people who play board games and video games has been blurring.

It didn’t take a pandemic for Odin to discover board games though. It’s practically in his DNA.

“I’m told that less than an hour after I was born, my parents were playing Settlers of Catan in the hospital. I took my first steps at an MTG tournament and have been immersed in games for my entire life.

“Everything about board games is engaging and exciting for me. I like a challenge and I like rules. I like story and I like art. Designing board games is exactly what I want to do after university.”

Juggling studies and working on Lifeship has been easier to manage than he expected, he says.

“The one notable exception being that board game conventions are almost always scheduled right around exams.”

Studying philosophy has even been a plus when it comes to working on the game, especially around understanding people’s underlying motivations, he says.

“Along with the usual benefits of critical analysis and discussion that apply to game design, philosophy is incredibly helpful in creating interesting and believable philosophies for characters and communities within the world of Lifeship.”

For Chris, Odin has been an equal partner since day one and they often workshop Lifeship lore together, he says.

“Usually, I come up with an idea, and then Odin uses his philosophy to challenge the idea, and his science background to fill in gaps.

“There are seven factions in the game, and understanding their goals, their methods, and how they interact makes the universe feel alive. Odin is very good at digging down into what makes a certain group or individual tick.”

Working with his father on the game has been a positive experience, Odin says.

“It’s been fantastic. I’ve helped with other projects of my dad’s before and we have a lot of experience working together.

“We’ve had many a deep philosophical discussion about Lifeship, much to the annoyance of whoever is trapped with us in the car at the time.”

Even though Lifeship is still in the prototype stage, the team has trialled it with board game aficionados at various gaming conventions.

“Everyone who’s played the game with us has loved it. When we demoed it at Wellycon we had people asking to buy the game from us.

Half the cards didn’t even have art then,” Odin says.

Lifeship has a definite kiwi vibe in the humour, Chris says.

“Everything is awful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. Mission tone can vary from rescuing 5,000 miners from a volcanic planet to going to a derelict space station that used to house a corporation that made aquariums because the Captain’s aquarium broke.”

Chris’s hopes are that they can build enough support to get the game into people's hands next year.

“If it goes extremely well, then we may even be able to launch the company properly with offices and begin on several projects we have in the works.”

–Kōrero by Internal Communications Adviser Laura Hewson

Lifeship 101: The basics explained

Oversized playing pieces that represent what two of the character classes look like.

A Q&A with Chris Jacobs – one of the creative team behind Lifeship – about what to expect from their game.

In a nutshell, what is Lifeship?

Lifeship is an epic storytelling and strategy board game where every decision you make shapes the course of your journey. It’s an immersive game that blends thrilling gameplay with unexpected humour.

Who will enjoy it?

Lifeship should appeal to players who like strategy skirmish games like Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, deck building games like Clank and narrative focused games like Sleeping Gods and My Father's Work.

When we’ve demoed the game at conventions around the country, people who’ve played Gloomhaven and Frosthaven picked up the rules immediately and were very interested in playing.

We’ve had people as young as 8 playing at conventions, all the way up to 73. People who like intuitive game play, science fiction, humour, and games with very little waiting time will like it.

Is it collaborative or competitive?

The game is semi-cooperative. You work together as a team to achieve objectives and bring salvage back to the ship, but you also have role-based objectives that reward you with Captain's Kredits. For instance, the medic receives Kredits for curing status conditions, but not healing. So, a Medic may cure you, instead of healing you if it makes them more money.

Lots of skirmish games are a series of battlefields where you have to kill every enemy. Our missions have multiple endings and are very rarely about killing every enemy.

What are some of the cooler things about the game?

We have a website companion that has been custom built for our game. Each mission has branching paths that lead to a different outcome based on your success and choices. It tracks those choices and allows us to provide bespoke options based on what you’ve done.

So if you betray a character in an early mission, they’ll remember that and may return later to take revenge. Or if you helped that same character, they may turn up to offer support on a different mission. The website is very powerful.

Gameplay is simultaneous and things change on the board all the time. So instead of having to plan the perfect turn, players select cards at the same time, then choose what those cards will do when their initiative comes up. It’s frenetic and fun, and keeps you engaged throughout.

One of your taglines is ‘Failure is just another path forward’. What does this mean?

Failing a mission in Lifeship doesn’t stop the story –  and trust me, you’ll fail – it just changes it. No restarts, no wasted time, just a new path forward.

In games like Gloomhaven, when you die, you restart the mission and try again. When you die in Lifeship, you get cloned and return to the ship (after the mission), with a new mutation. Each character can die four times total before they die for real.

In the event that you permanently die, your character receives a hero’s funeral. This story is completely bespoke for each of the 100+ characters and usually references their ambition and how they will be remembered.

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