A large part of the storytelling in Lacuna Passage takes place via written or audible journal entries, mission logs, communication between crew members, or communications from Earth. Some of these story fragments are critical to the plot related to the missing crew members of the Hermes and some of them are there to build a world around the characters and who they are.

Today we would like to announce a contest to incorporate your writing in Lacuna Passage. Your challenge is to write an email directed to the Hermes crew astronauts asking them questions about their mission before they arrive on the Red Planet. The top three entries will be selected and included in the game along with a response from one or more of the characters answering your questions. You will also receive the Physical Collector’s Edition of the game, Closed Beta access, and the Limited Edition Poster (all previously only available to Kickstarter backers).

To be eligible your entry needs to follow some basic guidelines:

No more than 200 words.
The text must be “in-fiction”. Do not make references to the game Lacuna Passage. You are communicating with fictional characters in the game, and if your entry is selected they will “communicate” back to you via in-game text.
You may use your real name and details about you in the message, but that must be made clear in an explanation about your entry and you must give us permission to use your name in the game if we select your entry.
You may submit no more than 5 entries.

Some ideas for framing your message:

Write a message from a curious student who wants to know how to become an astronaut.
Write a message from yourself asking specifics about the mission to Mars.
Write a message from someone who knows the astronaut personally. If we like what you come up with we may incorporate the relationship into the astronaut’s backstory.

Your message can be directed at the crew of the Hermes (the 1st mission to Mars) as a group or any particular member of the crew. The following details about the crew should give you a start.

Commander - Anton Bolshov - Russia

Pilot - Elijah Conners - USA

Payload Commander - Devi Chawla-Stuart - UK/India

Flight Engineer - George Carpenter - USA

Science Officer - Dimitri Moroshkin - Russia

To submit your entry email us at info [at] lacunapassage.com. You can include your text as an attachment or in the body of the email. The deadline for entry will be 11:59PM Central Time US on Saturday, November 30th. Entries received after that time will not be eligible. Depending on the number of entries, we should be able to announce the winners by the end of December.

Make sure to spread the word on Twitter and Facebook, and good luck!