Grimdark Future: Star Quest

What is Grimdark Future: Star Quest

Grimdark Future: Star Quest is a solo and co-op adventure game from OnePageRules, created by Gaetano Ferrara. It’s the sci-fi version of Age of Fantasy: Quest, and OPR says calls for one started “flooding in” after the fantasy game came out. You run a party of two to four heroes, and a simple AI runs the enemies.

OPR describes it as a hybrid between a skirmish game and an RPG: your party fights off waves of enemies on epic missions, and between them your heroes gain experience, find loot, level up, and suffer injuries. It’s set in OPR’s Grimdark Future universe, a war-torn sci-fi future, and the rules are written for 32mm miniatures.

It came out on October 29, 2024, free like the rest of OPR’s games. The current core rules are v2.0.1, updated in November 2025. OPR’s launch post is clear about what it isn’t: “if you’re looking for a competitive versus game, then this isn’t it.” They pitch it as a good fit for solo play, for playing with family and friends, and for people new to wargames, young children included.

How it plays

Heroes go first, then the AI. Each round every hero activates, and then the enemy units activate in order, closest to a hero first.
An action plus a skill action. Each hero takes one action (Rest, Hold, Advance, Rush, or Charge) and one skill action. The common skills are Discover (reveal or grab a search token), Push (shove an enemy 2”), and Scurry (a short extra move), and heroes have their own hero skills on top.
Power is your fuel. Heroes spend 2 power for an extra action, to turn a failed Str, Dex, or Wil test into a pass, to shrug off being Shaken, or to revive a friend. Resting refills it, but a resting hero does nothing else that turn. Spend more power than you have and you take wounds instead.
Enemies run off a flowchart. If they can see a hero they close in to shoot or charge, and if they can’t, they head for the nearest AI Goal. No second player needed.
Nobody dies mid-mission. A hero who drops goes unconscious and the AI ignores them until another hero revives them. If the whole party is down at once, the mission fails and you restart the chapter.
Waves and alertness. Sentries are on the table from the start. Alertness goes up every round (faster if the table is empty), and when it hits 6 a wave of reinforcements arrives at a random corner. Wave size is a share of your party’s point value, from 25% on Beginner to 100% on Legendary.
The campaign. A campaign runs a few chapters of a few missions each. Missions pay out XP and hazard pay in credits, heroes level up to improve their stats, shop between chapters, and roll on an injury table if they end a mission knocked out. Heroes carry over between campaigns.

It uses the same d6 core as the rest of OPR: roll a stat test, 6s always succeed, 1s always fail.

Gear matters

OPR’s launch post calls out things you won’t find in its other games: status conditions, loot, and consumables like med kits, adrenaline injectors, and frag grenades. They say consumables are “especially important for your survival,” especially at higher difficulties.

How to start

Download the free rules. The core rules, a Beginner’s Guide (rules plus the Campaign Builder in one book), and the Campaign Builder are all free on the Star Quest page. The core rules also come in German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Polish.
Make your heroes. Build two to four heroes in the free Army Forge web app. Heroes are based on existing armies, so you pick a hero from an army list and give it a class.
Build an enemy collection. You also make a collection of enemies from the minis you own. OPR recommends putting in everything you have, and the Beginner’s Guide suggests a collection worth at least four times your party’s points so you don’t run out of models.
Pick your missions. The Campaign Builder rolls up a random campaign or one-off missions. Or buy a narrative campaign: Into the Frontier, Escaping New Orzuk, By Crystal’s Glow, and Testing the Limits are $4.99 each on DriveThruRPG.
Get minis. Any sci-fi minis you already own will do. If you want OPR’s own, they sell 3D-print files through Patreon and MyMiniFactory, pre-printed resin on Etsy, and free paper minis on DriveThruRPG.
Set up a table. You need a 4 × 4 ft area with at least 20 pieces of terrain, or a 2 × 2 ft area if you halve all distances. The Beginner’s Guide says books or cups work as terrain in a pinch.
Want a quick game? The free Horde Mode rules throw up to ten waves at a Level 1 party and score how long you last.