I've always been fascinated by the idea of humanity's survival on a galactic time scale. How will we survive in a hundred thousand years, in a million, billion, etc. 

So I'm making a game based on that. I was already thinking about something along these lines before the theme was announced, so it was a pretty happy coincidence. Humanity leaves Earth and tries to survive in the solar system, in multiple solar systems, in multiple galaxies etc. As you move further away from Earth you move further in time to different epochs, as entropy breaks down potential resources and it becomes more and more difficult to survive. 

The game uses a sheet of graph paper to mark the human diaspora's journey, as well as a standard deck of playing cards. The cards represent different things (hearts are people, diamonds are food and fuel, clubs are ideas and culture, spades are technology like weapons and tools) and the players use them to move the human diaspora, overcome challenges, and role play scenes that occur during each turn. Each player has a playbook that represents one of the guilds in charge of the operations of the diaspora which give them special abilities based on their suit. For example The Spades guild is better at addressing challenges with spades cards, etc.

So it's basically a GMless role playing map game about humanity's survival over the next trillion years. Right now I've got the basic rules, a rough draft of the map, and I'm making the playbooks so I can start testing the game.

It really seems a premise I’d want to see in a game. Please, develop it!

Work continues. Changing and fine-tuning the mechanics. Have most of the special abilities for the different suit guilds locked in. Hard to find a balance when you want the game to be difficult. Right now whether or not humanity survives past the Dark Era is mostly based on luck of the draw. But that does feel fitting in a way.

Made some notes about how to play the roles of the different suits during play, including lists of names for the guilds (The Guild of Spades, Union of Workers, House of Diamonds, etc.). Next I think I'll write everything up into rules text so I'm not keeping it in my head or on random notes. Also do some additional research to colour the different epochs and give each guild, challenge, and era of the map some flavour for the storytelling aspect of the game. 

A little preview from the first page of the game:

Here's a draft of one of the guild sheets

And here's the first draft of the Legacy Sheet, where players can record characters when they make a significant contribution to the human diaspora, and where players can record summaries of important scenes played out at the table.

My map sheet for players to draw on. I'm not much of an artist, but luckily I want each point of interest to be general enough to allow players to imagine whatever they like when they encounter different things in each era.