The other day someone asked in the forums for a recent city-building game set in space. The fact is that there are very few available. At least recent ones. Well, the prayers seem to have been heard.
Indie dev Ryan Czech and his team propose Terminus, a real-time construction simulator entirely devoted to space colonization. They say that they have the entire game already planned out and that they’re now ready to advance to the implementation phase. The game unfolds in a post-apocalyptic setting, where Earth is no more.
Ryan proposes a space colony city-building experience, where you need to decide which buildings get built and where. Research is used to unlock new buildings and to improve the colony. But, the game’s primary focus seems to be disaster management. You will need to deal with fires, biological hazards, diseases, air-loss, earthquakes or even meteor impacts.
To see how serious the devs really are about disaster management they envisage concepts like: “Evacuation Procedures” to help reduce colonist casualties or “Facility Inspections” to assure that your buildings are fit against damage. It seems that much of the game plays around with the idea of preparing things for what can go wrong.
About the “why”, the devs breakdown their funding needs among programming work (the biggest share), 2D and 3D art assets, backer rewards, business fees (licenses, taxes) and IndieGoGo/paypal fees.
Ryan’s Terminus proposal in a nutshell:
- Space colony construction simulation (city-building)
- Post-apocalyptical setting
- Procedural planets
- Emphasis on disaster management
- PC platform, DRM-free
- $10 pledge to get the game
- ETA: November 2013
- IndieGoGo fixed campaign (they only get the funds if the $25.000 goal is reached)
Long are the days since Sierra gave us the space construction simulators Outpost and Outpost 2, and more recently Space Colony HD from Fireflies studios. I’d say it’s time for another space colony city-building gaming experience. Will it be Terminus?
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Lead Dev for Terminus here,
Thank you for the coverage Adam! You’ve done a great job encapsulating the project.
If anyone in the comment thread has any questions about the game, I encourage you to visit our campaign page (linked above, and here): http://www.indiegogo.com/terminusgame
Or just ask your question here and I’ll be happy to answer!
You might want to consider a rename as there is a Space Flight sim called Terminus as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_(video_game)
Looks like an Awesome and Interesting concept reminds me of The BBC’s Attempt at a Serious Sci-fi thriller. Outcasts was its name, brilliant show that shouldn’t have been cancelled but still i like the concept and depending on how much I get paid next may see me back it or not little tight on funds atm.
I Wish the devs best of luck and even if I don’t back it ill definitely pre-order it if it reaches its goal.
I’ve never seen that BBC series, I guess it’s a fault of being Canadian, I had never heard of it! I will see if there is any showing of it on local stations, or if I have to try to order the DVD set, it sounds right up my alley.
Thank you for your support for the project! Stay tuned for our upcoming video covering gameplay, and spread the word to folks you think might be interested! We definitely need people to help us get news out about the game.
I just happened upon Outcast by accident about a year ago and was very pleased with it. Sad It just ended like so many others.
Looks very interesting. My brother and I thoroughly enjoyed a 90s game by the name of Outpost with a similar concept I think. Sadly I haven’t really seen any games like that until now.
I’ll be keep an eye on this. As I’ve said many times, I wish there were more space strategy games where establishing and developing a colony was a major thing rather than a matter of routine. The way most games do it, colonizing a new planet is as simple as putting on a pair of trousers!
This looks radical, but I think a gameplay prototype of some sort is critical to achieve success in crowdfunding. The ETA is also too ambitious, most especially if this is still in the design rather than implementation phase. Consider November 2014! Trust me!
Hmmm IndieGoGo campaign seems to have stalled :/ they should have done it on kickstarter instead IndieGoGo is good but it just doesn’t have the coverage that Kickstarter does :/