There’s this thing floating in my mind for some time. A colony management game, where the colony is regressing instead of progressing.
You manage an isolated colony on a deserted planet slowly falling apart, desperately trying to mitigate the damage and survive the fall.
You begin with automated system managing the colony, so that you won’t get overwhelmed by all the systems. Then, systems begin to fail one-by-one, by external factors putting them in strain.
Maybe the colony train network goes down first, then the communication network breaks down, leading to civil unrest. Next, heating fails, then environmental shielding, and oxygen goes out. You can utilize emergency systems and construct makeshift components, but it can only lessen the impact, not reverse the entire breakdown.
Maybe this is uncommon because sense of despair makes it unfun, but I would still find it interesting.
It’s not your vision, exactly, but I think Project Zomboid handles this to a degree. You start out with the power/water on and none of the food spoiled yet. But as the game goes on, you need to rely more and more on things you’ve made yourself. Also, you’re told from the very start that this is how you died.
One thing colony management games really don’t handle is rot… so your concept would be really good along with a progression system, so you start with a functioning but failing colony, and have to fix/rip out/rebuild/etc to keep it running, but doing any of that runs the risk of breaking something you might not have known about and so on…
Are you secretly a current US politician hoping someone smarter than you chimes in with a secret one-two punch to save the breakdown of your government?
There’s this thing floating in my mind for some time. A colony management game, where the colony is regressing instead of progressing.
You manage an isolated colony on a deserted planet slowly falling apart, desperately trying to mitigate the damage and survive the fall. You begin with automated system managing the colony, so that you won’t get overwhelmed by all the systems. Then, systems begin to fail one-by-one, by external factors putting them in strain. Maybe the colony train network goes down first, then the communication network breaks down, leading to civil unrest. Next, heating fails, then environmental shielding, and oxygen goes out. You can utilize emergency systems and construct makeshift components, but it can only lessen the impact, not reverse the entire breakdown.
Maybe this is uncommon because sense of despair makes it unfun, but I would still find it interesting.
Frostpunk is pretty similar. If the gameplay is slightly harder than you can keep up with its essentially exactly that scenario.
It’s not your vision, exactly, but I think Project Zomboid handles this to a degree. You start out with the power/water on and none of the food spoiled yet. But as the game goes on, you need to rely more and more on things you’ve made yourself. Also, you’re told from the very start that this is how you died.
You should try playing Grimshire and report back on the experience!
One thing colony management games really don’t handle is rot… so your concept would be really good along with a progression system, so you start with a functioning but failing colony, and have to fix/rip out/rebuild/etc to keep it running, but doing any of that runs the risk of breaking something you might not have known about and so on…
Are you secretly a current US politician hoping someone smarter than you chimes in with a secret one-two punch to save the breakdown of your government?