We take the colony sim genre into the near future, onto a lush planet where humans are making their first foothold. Characters and alien wildlife are brought to life through a rigorous simulation and the game plays out as a tug-of-war between humans and nature on a planet full of opportunities and dangers.
Understanding the alien environment is crucial - the resources you discover will provide a number of production options making you able to adapt when food gets scarce and equipment breaks.
Your role
In this game you will not feel like a commander issuing orders, because the settlers have no command chain but rely on voting if they disagree. You will get the sense that you're part of the community, organizing your groups decisions, not bossing them around. You do this by using the Pioneer Planning Unit, an instrument issued by the Tau Ceti Mission. You will feel like a member of the group, sharing their victories and failures.
We will keep polishing the A.I. to ensure that humans and animals act as realistically and independently as possible.
Setting
The game takes place in a realistic sci-fi setting, in a plausible future without Faster-than-Light travel.
The year is 2238 and Earths first and only interstellar colonization ship has reached the end goal of its 100 year journey a terran planet in the Tau Ceti star system. 2100 humans will now make this planet their new home. There are no additional supplies or reinforcements coming in - they must make do with what they brought and what they can find.
----------------------------------------Early Access: Current features
Episode 1: The Lost Explorers
When we first enter the world, we experience the aftermath of a landing operation gone desperately wrong. We follow a handful of scientists that are lost in the wilderness. They have narrowly escaped an alien swarm which attacked the landing area and scared off the colonists about to land. The scientists are now far away and forgotten by the newly settled and struggling colony, so chances of rescue are slim.
Narrative scenarios
In these scenarios, you guide the explorers to survive by scouting the surroundings, locate useful resources and make improvised tools, weapons and structures. For food, you can hunt the elusive thunder chicken or try to spear the fish that inhabit the waters. There will be attacks by pack predators such as the so-called twinkler which emerges from the caves littering the landscape. To repel them you can construct ranged weapons and build fences, but to permanently end the threat you must locate their nests and come up with a way to clear them out.
If your explorers manage to survive long enough, they get rescued and rejoin the other settlers. This ends the scenario. Depending on which scenario you choose, a game lasts 1 hour or more.
The scenarios we have now are hand-made but we will quickly develop options to randomize things such as starting location, number of resources, camp members, enemies etc.
We will keep developing new scenarios with different objectives and features.
Note: We currently do NOT have the possibility to SAVE and LOAD a game - this is on the list of things we want to develop (see below).
Sandbox maps
If you want a free-form experience, you will soon be able to play sandbox maps with limited narrative and unlimited play time.
----------------------------------------Early Access: Planned features
During the Early access phase we wish to develop most of the following features. But our plans could change, depending on the feedback we get and the resources we have.
Modding support (maps, scenarios, game data)
Save game functionality (games cannot presently be saved/loaded)
Languages (community provided translations)
Many more scenarios
Creatures can feed on food items and carcasses
Research
Diseases / treatment
More animations / effects
Interface graphics polished
Known bugs/issues:
This is a management game with indirect control, which means that you're not supposed to directly command a character to carry out a task. But, if ordered tasks are not being carried out, (the characters are just standing around) and you don't know why, then it's either a bug or a feedback problem (the game should explain the reason to you). We take these issues very seriously and will work to address them whenever they show up.
-------------------------------------Possible features in the long term (after Early Access)
We would like to provide Mac / Linux support at some point.
After finishing the first episode we want to build up the world with more gameplay features over a series of other episodes, each with a unifying theme. They will be in the form of either expansions or patches, but will be free of charge once you've bought the game:
Second episode: Agriculture
In the second episode we visit the early settlements. We meet the colonists who are starting to carve out a living on the planet from farming. Like the first, this episode will also deal with the relation between humans and nature but will present deeper ecosystemic dilemmas now that the front lines are being drawn up between Earth life and indigenous life.
Following episodes
We will see colonies produce goods and conduct mining operations. As the human society becomes more established, the settlers confidence grows. The colony can share knowledge with Earth (even though a message takes 10 years to travel between the planets) but what do they think of the way civilization on Earth has evolved? Maybe the settlers want to cut off communication, assert their independence and rename the planet.
See our website for a list of features that we might develop in the future:
http://unclaimedworld-game.com/the-game/features/
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