KESTRION

KESTRION

Fleet design · Real-time command

A real-time strategy game where you design every ship you command. Build them block by block, put them into fleets, then lead those fleets into battle against the AI or your friends.

Download free beta Join the Discord Windows 10 / 11 · Linux on the way

What Kestrion is

Your designs, your tactics

Winning should come from good designs and good decisions, not from grinding or paying.

Design your own ships

About 80 parts on a grid: hulls, armour, engines, reactors, shields, sensors and weapons from autoguns to railguns, torpedoes, drones and lightning. The ship you fly is the ship you built.

Battles you can replay

Every battle runs on a deterministic simulation: the same orders always give the same result. Save a match and watch it again, exactly as it happened.

An AI that never cheats

Computer opponents only see and do what a player could. Harder levels think better; they don't get extra money or see through fog.

Multiplayer with your IP hidden

Play directly with friends, with no account needed. Every player runs the exact same simulation, so what you see is what happened. Switch on Hide my IP and other players only ever see our relay's address.

Map editor and sandbox

Lay out your own battlefields in the map editor. Test any ship or idea in the sandbox with nothing on the line.

Ship builder

Every ship is yours to design

Place parts on a grid and watch the numbers change as you build. The builder checks power and thrust as you go, and the sandbox lets you test a ship before it flies.

Cost
96
Top speed
208
Damage/s
40
Hit points
1440

The Courier, a 4 x 3-cell corvette from the starter fleet.

The Kestrion ship builder with a corvette on the grid, the parts list on the left and live stats on the right

Starter fleet

Eight designs to start from

Cost in credits. Drawn by the game itself. Pull them apart, change them, or start from nothing.

  • The Courier, 96 credits01Courier96
  • The Cutlass, 180 credits02Cutlass180
  • The Phantom, 220 credits03Phantom220
  • The Siege, 262 credits04Siege262
  • The Brood, 364 credits05Brood364
  • The Paladin, 389 credits06Paladin389
  • The Smith, 397 credits07Smith397
  • The Juggernaut, 452 credits08Juggernaut452

Real-time command

Then lead them into battle

Spend credits to launch ships, hold capture points, and outfight fleets that think differently from yours. Skirmish on 30+ maps, from duels to ten players.

  • Locust SwarmFloods the map with cheap ships and attacks relentlessly.
  • Carrier DoctrineLets drones do the work and keeps its carriers back.
  • GunlineHolds a defensive line and shoots from range; pushes when clearly ahead.
  • IronhideSlow armoured push that rarely retreats.
  • Grand ArmadaSaves up for a few huge capital ships and screens them with cheap escorts.

Four levels, from Easy to Brutal. Even Brutal plays fair.

A battle in Kestrion: two fleets exchanging laser fire in front of a purple nebula

The studio

Lockstep Interactive

Kestrion is made by Lockstep Interactive, the one-person studio of EdenOrchardian. Its mark is two letters locked together: an orange L and a blue S.

From the developer

Why Kestrion is made with AI

I have always wanted to build a game of my own. What stopped me was never the ideas. It was time, and the expertise to turn an idea into something real, polished and safe to put on other people's computers.

Kestrion is made with Claude, Anthropic's AI, as a working partner. I have watched AI tools get misused: flooding shops with low-effort copies, standing in for artists, shipping things nobody checked. I want to show the other way. Here is how AI is used properly, as a tool, to make something interesting and unique that could not have existed otherwise:

  • The vision and every decision are mine. What the game is, how it plays, how it looks and what it will never do. The AI builds, I direct, and nothing ships without my say.
  • Nothing is taken from other people's work. The game's art is drawn by code, designed and refined in rounds of mockups that I choose from, not generated images.
  • Everything is tested before it reaches you. Automated checks, live play tests on real machines, and a full security review of everything that touches the internet.
  • I'm open about it. You are reading this.

If Kestrion turns out good, it will be because a person with a clear idea had the right tool, and used it with care.

EdenOrchardian

Screenshots

From the beta

Fleets clashing between two capture points The Skirmish lobby: players and rules on the left, a big map of Crossfire on the right An explosion in the middle of a fleet battle Commanding a selected group of ships, with the build bar and abilities The main menu over a live battle The ship builder

Free beta

Download Kestrion

Kestrion is in development. Once installed, it keeps itself up to date and always asks before downloading anything.

  • Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit
  • Linux on the way
  • No account needed
Go to downloads Join the Discord