Close The Straits!

CLOSE THE STRAITS! A Naval Interdiction Thriller

You are Lieutenant Commander [REDACTED], a modestly paid naval officer stationed at the most strategically volatile stretch of water on the planet. Every morning, the Supreme Leader hands down a new directive. Every afternoon, President Orange tweets something that undoes it. Every evening, you go home and explain to your wife why the grocery money went toward international incident prevention.

WHAT IS CLOSE THE STRAITS?

Close the Straits is a real-time naval interdiction strategy game where you command a weapons arsenal, interrogate suspicious ship captains, and attempt to enforce the Supreme Leader’s ever-changing maritime blockade — all while keeping global tensions below catastrophic levels and earning enough salary to pay the kids’ school fees.

Ships approach , left and right, every single day. Some are legitimate merchants carrying grain and electronics. Others are running weapons, flying the wrong flag, broadcasting false AIS signals, or just being deeply suspicious about what’s in their cargo hold. Your job is to tell the difference — and act accordingly.

Get it right and you’re a hero of the state. Get it wrong and you’ve just sunk a South Korean grain freighter and triggered a diplomatic crisis. The Supreme Leader is not pleased. Your wife is also not pleased. Nobody is pleased.

FEATURES

🚢 Real-Time Ship Traffic Dozens of vessels cross the Straits simultaneously, each moving independently at different speeds. Large cargo ships lumber through while small fast movers dart between lanes. Destroyers patrol aggressively and will fight back. Every wave is different. Every day is chaos.

🔍 Deep Intel Investigation System Every ship broadcasts three layers of information — and any of them could be a lie.

• AIS Data — transponder signals showing vessel name, flag nation, cargo class, speed and destination. Except some ships spoof their AIS. Some turn it off entirely. A ship with no AIS signal is already suspicious. One whose broadcast name doesn’t match its hull markings is a red flag. Literally.

• Flag Inspection — zoom in and examine what’s actually flying from the mast. Is the national ensign correct? Is the quarantine Q-flag present? Is a hazmat signal missing when the cargo manifest says Chemicals? Flags can be wrong, misleading, or missing entirely.

⚔️ Four Weapon Systems

• Artillery — click anywhere on the water or directly on a ship. Shells arc through the air over five seconds and detonate in a wide blast radius. Excellent for area denial. Terrible for precision targeting. Just make sure you’re firing at the right thing.

• Drones — click a specific ship to launch a tracking drone. It follows the target through the air. Destroyers in range will attempt to shoot it down. 

• Sea Mines — place persistent mines on empty water. Ships that sail over them detonate them, triggering chain-reaction area damage. Plan your mine placement strategically. Or chaotically. Either works.

• Naval Intercept — launch a fast intercept boat from the launch base to physically board and subdue a target ship. Takes time depending on ship size, but crucially reveals all true ship data — real cargo, real flag, real identity.

📰 Dynamic World Events The Supreme Leader and President Orange generate a continuous stream of events that shift global tension up and down throughout each day. Sometimes they escalate. Sometimes they de-escalate. Sometimes they get into a public argument that somehow makes everything worse for everyone. Events can trigger chain reactions — an Orange tweet prompts a Supreme Leader response, which prompts another Orange tweet, which prompts an international incident.

💰 Salary-Driven Progression Every correct interdiction earns points. Every wrong ship destroyed costs points. Points convert directly to salary. Your salary target changes every day, and the reasons are deeply personal — school fees, dental work, the Supreme Leader’s Birthday Celebration Levy, your wife’s shopping trip described as "non-negotiable." Miss your target and go home to a difficult evening. Hit it and briefly feel like a competent professional.

📈 The Tension System A global tension meter tracks how close the Straits situation is to full international meltdown. Every ship you destroy adds tension — right ships add a little, wrong ships add a lot. Random world events push it up and down. If tension hits 500, the game ends. Not with a victory screen. With an incident report.

🏴 Escalating Daily Directives The Supreme Leader’s directives escalate over time. Early days are manageable — stop ships carrying weapons, intercept vessels with no AIS signal. Later days get complicated. Multiple suspicious criteria overlap. More Destroyers appear. Event chains start affecting tension faster. The Straits get busier. The pressure gets heavier.

THE PHILOSOPHY

Close the Straits draws inspiration from games like Papers Please and Orwell — the quiet horror of bureaucratic enforcement, the moral weight of decisions made under time pressure, and the absurdist comedy of geopolitics filtered through the lens of one underpaid man trying to do his job while the world’s most powerful and least stable personalities argue on the news ticker at the bottom of his screen.

Every ship is a puzzle. Every wave is a new set of puzzles. Every day ends with a debrief that tells you exactly how many of those puzzles you got wrong, how much money you earned, and what your family needs the money for this week.

KEY FEATURES AT A GLANCE

• Real-time naval interdiction.

• Three-layer intel system: AIS data, flag inspection, radio interrogation

• Four weapon systems with distinct mechanics and strategic tradeoffs

• Dynamic tension system with chained world events

• Escalating daily directives across multiple game days

• Salary progression tied to performance — with increasingly personal spending obligations

• Destroyer ships that actively fight back against your weapons and intercept boats

• Launch Base with health points — protect it or lose the game

• Procedurally generated ship names, flags, cargo, deception combinations and captain personalities

"The Straits won’t close themselves." — Supreme Leader, probably