A game has been announced that has been in development in “stealth mode” for 2 and a half years by Mothership Entertainment. That game is Aven Colony.
From the description, it sounds like a Sim City type game based on a far off planet, the announcement post stating:
“Aven Colony is a colony-building and management sim. It tells the story of humanity’s very first settlement of an extrasolar world — a moon around a gas giant a few light-years from Earth known as Aven Prime.
“Land on an exotic alien world, settle its various biomes, maintain a hermetically-sealed colony, deal with the wild and unpredictable alien weather, build your colony’s infrastructure and ensure a steady supply of food and water and electricity, cleanse your colony of alien “creep” infections, and much more.”
OK, maybe not quite a Sim City type game, as the game will be exploring the realms of “planetary colonization, survival, and colony management at a full city-builder scale”. A list of features already announced include:
- A rich simulation of an extraterrestrial colony, including oxygen propagation, habitation, employment, electricity and power generation, mining, crime, food cultivation, limited inventory, water, and much more.
- Dozens of different buildings, from simple inflatable-tent “modules” to massive skyscrapers created from metallic nano-cubes (“nanites”). Most of these buildings support 2-3 upgrade tiers.
- A fully functional day/night cycle, which is tied to a “sol” on Aven Prime (a “sol” is equivalent to one earth week, and “night” is essentially a brief winter season). During the “winter” season, Aven Prime freezes over, and farms will not grow food and solar panels will generate far less electricity.
- Use 3 different types of advanced flying drones (construction drones, police drones, and scrubber drones) to build, upgrade, and manage your colony.
- An alien infection called “the creep,” which can glom onto buildings and cover them in alien tentacles. Build special “Scrubber Drones” to clear the creep from infected buildings and stop it from taking over the entire colony.
- Additional environmental challenges including lightning storms, dust devils, deadly toxic gas emissions from geothermal vents, and shard storms.
- Research, grow, and process various alien plant species and foodstuffs and decide on the best locations to place farms and greenhouses for roughly a dozen different crops, derived from both Earth-based and native plant species.
- 12 distinct “overlay” modes give more information about the colony: Crops, Citizens, Happiness, Crime, Air, Electricity, Employment, Resources, Beauty, Structures, Drones, and Water.
- Manufacture dozens of types of foods, beverages, and “enhancement substances” that will alter your citizens’ morale and productivity.
- A rich morale system based on 13 different morale factors, and regular referendum elections that will give your citizens the opportunity to kick you out of office if morale gets too low.
- Over a dozen social policies.
- Discover, analyze, and use ancient alien artifacts as you learn more about the civilization that once inhabited the world of Aven Prime.
- A robust mission objective system that gently guides the player to build a viable colony at the start of the game, then expands to give broader objectives toward the endgame and keep the player moving. This system includes construction objectives, trade objectives, population / morale objectives, total colony size objectives, and much more. Up to three objectives are available to the player at a time.
- Fully player-controllable game speed; pause the game at any time or play at 1x, 2x, 4x, or 8x game speed.
- Rise in rank from Colony Governor to Expedition President (5 ranks total).
- A unique narrative that reveals the secrets of the civilization that once lived on Aven Prime.
An absolute treasure trove of information and features, and Aven Colony definitely sounds like a game that’s right up my street. The thought of the game not being open-ended or sandbox like with games such as Sim City or Cities:Skylines, but having more missions and an actual endgame, sounds very intriguing and I cannot wait to find out more.
Aven Colony is due to be released in early 2017 on the PC through Steam and itch.io with a current planned price of $29.99. For more information, go to avencolony.com. In the mean-time, feast your eyes on these screenshots!
What do you think? Let us know all of your thoughts on Aven Colony in the comments below or the RGM Forums.
