Terminus, a real-time “classic city-builder” in space, has now launched on Kickstarter.
The idea of a space colony/city-builder game named Terminus looking for backers may sound familiar. Back in January of this year, we reported that the Terminus team at Harbourgames was attempting to acquire funds through Indiegogo. They were unable to meet their goal at that time. Now Terminus is back, this time on Kickstarter, and it brings with it a new approach, new information, and some actual early gameplay/engine footage.
To recap, Terminus is self-described as a classic ‘city builder’ in space. The story indicates that Earth, and from what it sounds like, most of the solar system, is on the brink of being destroyed. Humanity, preparing for the disaster, has come together to create a colonization ship capable of avoiding the tragedy in an effort to save humanity from utter extinction.
So what will our potential role be as players? It seems we will be designing a colonizing ship in “Oregon Trail” style, and then picking a planet to colonize. Once we arrive, we will be taking on the role of administrator, meaning we will be deciding what to build and where, how to handle social situations and problems, preparing and handling disasters, and researching new technologies. Disaster management is emphasized a few times, so dealing with difficult situations is likely to play a large part in this game. It promises to be a difficult game, and in fact “most playthroughs should NOT end in victory”. In that sense I suspect it will be more about the journey than reaching the end.
The kickstarter indicates Terminus will be available for PC, Mac, and Linux around April 2014. The minimum donation to obtain a copy of the game appears to be $5 CAD at the time of this writing.
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Thx for the hint.
Backed it!
Although I hope they come up with aome more variety of catastrophies.
Alien invasion?
Xenolifeforms on the planet?
Solar flares, sunspots, and much more…
There are so many different things I could envision them doing. So far I don’t think I’ve seen any mention of alien life, intelligent or otherwise.
If you have questions, I’d say ask away. You never know what they might not have considered and they may really appreciate the suggestions. During this early stage is going to be the best time to do so.
Preparing an expedition and then struggling to survive and even prosper…
Reminded me very much of Dwarf Fortress.
Yeah, this looks promising. I’ll be watching this one.
Now 28 hours to go, and the project has just over ten grand out of 28,000 required. Looks like it’s not going to make it.
Bummer.
A lack of planning, updates, and additional information really hindered this project. I was interested and really hoped they would have more to show and talk about, and I know that a lot of other backers were as well. The last update was 18 days ago and all it did was promote a Kickstarter campaign for another developer’s game. The last update with any tangible information directly related to Terminus was on 9/27 when they revealed a song. You never want to hear people asking if your project is dead during your in-progress Kickstarter campaign.
In any case, the developer is aware the project isn’t going to meet the funding goal and is apparently looking into other options at this point based on the latest official comment.
Oh well. Maybe I should invest in Rimworld instead. That also looks promising, and ITS Kickstarter is doing extremely well.
Thanks for the update. I’ve never said this before, but I think Adam Solo made a good move when he brought you onboard.
Thanks, that’s really kind of you to say, and I appreciate it. I will continue to do my best to bring everyone interesting news, interviews, previews, and reviews.
It’s a shame about Terminus, but perhaps we will see them again someday. For now, RimWorld seems to be progressing nicely. I’ve also got a couple other colony/sci-fi sim games on my plate that I’ll be covering in the not too distant future…
Im wondering if this will be more tropico or more dwarf fortress.where are the dev getting inspiration from
City builders are my 2nd favorite genre, right behind space combat sims. Yeah, I miss both of them.
Too bad Impressions Games ran into a string of bad luck and imploded.
This looks encouraging. The brown would get old fast.
Available in 7 months, hmm good luck
You guys are all off on your comparisons.
This sounds A LOT like Outpost.
Not a complaint btw, once I figured out how to play the game Outpost is like my favorite spacecity-builder.
Interesting game.. a must see in the future.
Has anyone heard anything more about this game since the Kickstarter project failed? It’s been over a year…
Their official website is gone, and their twitter account has been silent since September 2013. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
This remains an object lesson for other kickstarters, though. As Keith Turner stated above, the lack of updates and information are most certainly what killed this project. As neat as Terminus sounded, it was impossible to figure out exactly how far along they were on it or (even more importantly) how quickly they were progressing. Even their final update talked mostly about another developer’s project!
I highly doubt we will hear about this project again. The last update I received was on June 29th, 2014. It states “development has been suspended due to lack of funds to pay for production. It’s not all glum though as I’d like to inform everyone of an awesome board-game being Kickstarted by a friend and associate of mine -” …
Then there are three more paragraphs about his friend’s Kickstarter that he helped out with and a link to go back it before time elapses. I have no issue with this project or boardgames in general, in fact I really enjoy a lot of designer boardgames, but the update was certainly strange. It came 8 whole months after the last Terminus update and had almost nothing to do with Terminus other than to restate again that the project was dead.
The boardgame project did fund, if you’re wondering. :-)