Taking Contracts in the Belt
Sketchy's Contract is a first-person co-op sci-fi looter horror game set in a mysterious asteroid belt. You play as a traveler who picked up a strange broadcast promising adventure and rewards. Your job is to accept contracts, travel to exotic planets, and complete objectives: kill creatures, gather planetary materials, and find loot. Everything you bring back goes to an ominous figure named Sketchy. The game supports 1-8 players online, so you can run contracts solo or with a full crew.
While the game is not story-driven, there is an optional linear story you can follow. Story Quests lead you from planet to planet searching for Memory Fragments that explain who Sketchy is. Completing this path rewards you with a golden flamingo trophy for your apartment.
Playing Together
Group play centers on splitting up the work across a planet. One player might dig up hidden treasure, mine ore, or harvest herbs while another hunts alien creatures for their corpses. Most creatures can be carried after you kill them, though heavier ones need a shrink ray to lighten the load. Communication matters when deciding whether to push deeper into a Security Level or head back with what you have.
The map is divided into difficulty-based Security Levels. Finding and opening access crates scattered across the map reveals codes that unlock higher security levels, which hold more valuable loot and tougher crates. Coordinating who grabs which codes keeps the whole team moving forward.
The Night Shift Decision
Each contract gives you a choice: stay on the planet through the Night Shift or leave before it starts. Staying overnight means facing much deadlier enemies, but the loot is far more valuable. Leaving means you avoid the risk of a Team Wipe. The decision is yours every time, and it changes how the rest of the run plays out.
Suit Progression and Loot
Loot feeds directly into your Suit Progression. The more you collect, the more XP you earn, which levels you up and grants points to spend at the Suit Modifier. You can raise Health, Attack Power, Stamina, gathering efficiency, and other attributes. Facing deadly enemies with enough health and damage to survive is the core loop.
Loot also matters beyond your suit. The Burger Shop has an inventory room where you restock shelves with certain loot to build toward perks. Filling the inventory unlocks things like cooking burgers, brewing coffee, and a Black Market Vendor that spawns randomly on planets each contract. Burgers heal you to full and keep healing over 30 minutes while boosting all damage by 10%. The Black Market Vendor sells pricey but powerful gear, and a perk gives you a 30% discount there. Aliens will visit the shop and eat some of your inventory as they order, so keeping the perks means keeping the shelves stocked.
Extras Between Contracts
Completing contracts earns credits, arcade coins, and gacha coins. These buy player skins, furniture for your apartment and ship, and plays at the arcade mini games. Your apartment has 100+ unlockable decorations, plus any creature corpses you collected as trophies. A loot converter machine turns collected loot into furniture so nothing is lost on a contract wipe.