Redshirt

Redshirt

The Tiniest Shark · 2013 · Indie, Simulation, RPG, Satire, Strategy

PC
Mixed42% · 21662Metacritic
Best price 80 All-time low
$0.99-90%
$9.99⭐ lowest tracked
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Steam
Standard Edition · Steam
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GOG
Standard Edition · DRM-Free
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About Redshirt

Redshirt is the comedy sci-fi sim about social networking aboard a space station, starring the station's most ambitious low-ranking peon: you! Navigate the professional and interpersonal politics of the ubiquitous "Spacebook" to curry favor among friends and colleagues. As intense intergalactic conflict rages around you, it's up to you to accrue those all-important "likes" on your status updates! Whether you're looking for love, opportunities for promotion, or even a chance to play Zero-G golf with the captain, you can schmooze your way through social circles and claw your way up the career ladder. Perhaps you too can finally achieve the dream of an off-station transfer, or even the Redshirt's opportunity of a lifetime: being sent on an away-mission!

"Redshirt’s take on science fiction clichés is amusing, telling short stories in the form of status updates and messages, but the activity of playing the game is rather intense, even though it’s a turn-based life management sim. As if accidentally snubbing friends and causing heartbreak wasn’t enough, a short while into your misadventure, a disturbing message arrives. A calamity is coming. The station is doomed. People will die." - Rock Paper Shotgun

Redshirt received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 IGF Awards for Excellence in Narrative!

Social Networking, But Not As We Know It...



Redshirt is a comedy sci-fi social networking simulation game. Create & customise your character, a brand new arrival aboard space station Megalodon-9, where you start your career on the lowest possible rung: a Transporter Accident Cleanup Technician. You also realise that everyone on the station is required to use the proprietary social network, "Spacebook"!

You hear rumours something terrible will happen soon aboard the station, and it's up to you to stop being a disposable nobody before it's too late! You can do this by interacting (through Spacebook!) with randomly-generated, AI-driven characters with their own unique personalities, trying to win friends and influence station citizens. Or, you can focus on what skills you need to climb the fairly-extensive career tree. Or, save up your KarmaCreds. Or, flirt your way up the station. The choice is yours, and there are different strategies. You just have a limited time in which to do it, otherwise... terrible things will happen. You are a Redshirt, after all!

Features

  • Satirical, tongue-in-cheek social simulation, filled with humour and political intrigue.
  • Detailed character creation: choose from 5 different species, from human to tentacled squid creature!
  • Each game is unique: Megalodon-9 is full of procedurally generated AI-driven characters, each with their own random personalities and profile pictures.
  • Customise station settings: define the kinds of personalities you'll encounter, from friendly chatterboxes to self-obsessed bigots.
  • Update your Spacebook, strategically 'like' statuses, and send private messages to your fellow station citizens.
  • Arrange Spacebook 'events' with your friends, frenemies, and even higher-ranking officers, to influence your relationships and skills.
  • Multiple routes to success through turn-based gameplay, from skills-based diligence, to romance, to charismatic schmoozing.
  • Navigate an extensive, non-linear career tree, by gaining the right skills... or just by making the right friends.
  • Make friends and manage romantic relationships -- if you can handle the drama!
  • Strategically manage your interests and skills.
  • Buy items in the Self-Help Object Purveyor (S.H.O.P.) to increase your stats and skills, from RoboCats to illegal hoverbikes!
  • Away missions!
  • Humorous parody of social networking culture.
  • Puns! So many puns.

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

✦ AI summary

Players are divided on this Star Trek-themed social simulator. Fans appreciate its unique take on the person management genre and enjoy the Lower Decks-style humor, especially at a discount price, though some note it's only good for a few hours of play. Critics find the game shallow and confusing, with too many mechanics explained poorly, overly preachy messaging, and a tedious social media interface that feels more like a parody of wokeness than actual gameplay, making it feel less like a game and more like navigating Facebook.

Not recommended Jan 22, 2026
This title surprised me. I enjoyed the song, which was based on a book, I enjoyed the book. This though... This is a special kind of trash. Ugly, clunky, obtuse, preachy, and stupid. Throws too much crap at you, but does not explain enough. Truly, one of the titles of time. This title has a bigotry slider, to determine if you want your character to be hit on by men. I am astounded that a story with actual heart managed to inspire, whatever it is one calls this. A bad social networking simulator would be the most accurate thing, but a bad simulator or a simulation of a bad social network? The answer is yes. In the ten minutes I ran this title, I was traumatized to the core. I may never trust the Star Trek franchise again. On an unrelated note I am probably never going to consider buying anything done by this development team. Presently, this paltry piece of propaganda parodies itself, presenting a product inferiour to walking simulators produced by people pushing to propagate pontification of preposterous political perspectives. I cannot call this a game, and I cannot recommend it.
2 found this helpful
Not recommended Jul 3, 2026
I knew this was doomed once it started generating satires of classic sci-fi combined with references to classic satirical sci-fi which were themselves satirizing the thing which had just been directly satirized. A game that is primarily comedy needs more original comedic ideas.
Recommended May 4, 2026
This game is trash. And its so wokle its genuinely, truly comically woke to the point of parodying itself into satire. But good God Do I unironically love this game. If you can get it at 2 or 3 dollars its a diamond. Jump in.
Recommended Apr 20, 2026
Red shirt is a game where you are a red shirt (a low level disposable employee) in a star trek like setting. Your goal is to try and successfully leave the station before the last day when the station will blow up. There are many ways of doing this: buying a ticket off the station, seducing a visiting abasador or getting a job from them, moving up the corporate ladder and making it to the top, etc. The game is played through in game social media posts: you create events, comment on npc's walls, form relationships, go to work, buy stuff for your apparentment, etc. Overall, its fun, its a neat take on the person management simulator genre.
Recommended Apr 18, 2026
Well... It´s a Build your Carreer and Social Life Simulator. You definetely need to be affected for series like Star Trek etc. But otherwise you wouln´t have found the game anyway i think. It´s a little nerdy but for being a whole statistic and events based game it´s quite interesting. Maybe wait for a sale before spending the full 9,75 Bucks. It might work for you but also might be boring. I liked it but i also won´t play it for more than a few hours.
Not recommended Dec 11, 2025
From the Times as Facebook was evrywhere and evryone used it. Well evryone? No i didnt use it, for the same reason i dont like the game either. Its a shallow pseudo friendship simulation. Where people i dont care write stuff i dont care about stuff they did or not did. Who cares? The best part is the star trek like style. Before we had Lower Decks this was the closest we had as lower decks. but then again, nothing matters and the options this game offers are very limited. I wouldnt even call it a game. cause there is so few you can rly controll. 28 of 100

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