This universe may be cold, but it is still three degrees warmer than absolute zero. Cold Bed on Route is an equation-style rogue-lite adventure game. Have you heard of The Cold Equations , the seminal 1950s sci-fi novella by Tom Godwin? A spaceship flying at the edge of its weight limit, carrying cargo vital to saving many lives. An unexpected stowaway slips aboard. If the stowaway stays, the ship will be too heavy to stay on course. The rescue mission will fail. If the stowaway is ejected into space, they will, of course, die. And yet—when the equation is clear, when the lives at stake are many—there’s only one logical outcome: sacrifice the one, save the many. This is the central dilemma of The Cold Equations , and the foundation of the "equation story" genre it inspired. Cold Bed on Route takes inspiration from that story and follows the same essential structure. The setting is a spacecraft adrift in the cold vacuum of space. More seed than ship, it’s a Final Emergency Boat (FEB) : ultra-small, ultra-light, and built for last-resort missions. And of course, as any equation story demands—there is a stowaway. In The Cold Equations , the stowaway was a fragile girl, sneaking aboard to see her brother. But in Cold Bed on Route , the “girl” is something else entirely. She is a Doggy , an artificial human with beastlike ears to mark her as non-human. She has flesh, bones, and blood—but she is far stronger and far more intelligent than any ordinary person. Work with her to search for and jettison any unnecessary items. Then compensate for the excess weight caused by bringing her aboard—a weight that is, well, a little more than it seems... quite a bit more, actually. Uh, how to put it... it’s, you know, really heavy. And finally, prove that the universe hasn’t gone completely cold. Not yet. Now then, pilot—it's your turn.
