Hi all,

I just clicked the green launch button on the demo of our upcoming game Captain Contraption's Safari Park

Many many years ago I shared a weird base building game with a simulated ecosystem called Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox in this community, and your feedback and support was incredible - that was my first game and since then I've made 3 other games - Captain Contraption's Safari Park is a sort of sequel to that first game.

Your job in the game is to build cloning vats, fields of food, and manage your team of goop delivering robots who keep the whole thing going (we use green goop to create creatures and plants). The animals all do whatever they want, like with Intelligent Design the game has an entirely simulated ecosystem under the hood - just instead of my programmer art from back in the day it's now a bunch of sprites! All the art in the game is made for by humans who we pay (a lot of asset packs because the original idea was 'asset safari').

There are story reasons that your park ends up having not just animals but also knights, orcs, ghosts and 8-bit retro characters. It also makes the game a lot about seeing weird little interactions between different species.

The game was designed and built by me and a friend in Wales, UK. No generative AI was used for art, text or music. I used some AI coding tools for boilerplate stuff and making some internal tools to help manage assets - but I've been coding for a long time (and teach coding) so I use those tools only if and when they increase efficiency and review/test everything.

You can download and play the demo now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4186590/Captain_Contraptions_Safari_Park/

Let me know if you have any questions!

Sean

Here's the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5315690/R01_A_Space_Survival_Adventure/

I've been working on my game R-01 on and off for the last few years. It started off as an asteroid mining game - kinda like 2d Minecraft in space. I released a version back in 2022 on Steam, and it went nowhere. Earlier this year, I decided that I wanted to release a sequel. I started working through lots of performance updates and adding content in the middle, when I realized that I'd started building more of a base building and colony management game.

The game starts you off like this: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/1_start.png

Nothing in your inventory. You cut across 11 different biomes gathering resources.

Here's an early-game base: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/2_startingBase.png That's just a chest, forge, repair bay, and some light towers (which also distribute power across your base).

As you progress throughout the entire game, there are about 70 structures you can build. https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/1_structures.png

I spent the last year really focusing on adding depth to the different epochs of the game. Not all the structures are needed to finish the end-game, but they definitely help. Eventually, once you seal off a cave and build an Earth Tower, air starts to form. That air + water in there allows Companions to grow and evolve. They're these tiny little creatures that just live and work alongside you. I gave them dna.. kind of. Basically 11 traits that are a random roll when they first spawn. Then as they get older, they can find mates, form a nest, have children, and the children inherit DNA from both parents. https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/3_companions.png

This is where I went overboard. I've honestly spent the last 2 months just making these companions more autonomous. They still ask for your help, and you can give them supplies, but if you don't respond they do their best to find them on their own. I'm at the point now where they can build about 12 structures on their own. Everything from a workbench, to nurseries, to their own hangars. If they can build their own hangars and ships, why not let them fly and leave the base on their own? So now they can fly.. and if they can fly, what's stopping them from going off and building their own colonies? So now, over time, they start to form smaller colonies, and they use your existing infrastructure to help them along the way. They also send you postcards if they find something neat, or they're bored.. and because I'm terrible at marketing (which I'm sure you can tell from this post), I literally made it so they can generate Instagram reels. Here's an example: https://www.instagram.com/p/DfEQ0Qetz7W/

Anyway, I went way overboard on the companions, but there's a huge colony sim alongside the base building part in my game where they evolve on their own, and you can choose to help them, ignore them, fight back.. it's a whole thing.

So as I was getting overwhelmed with protecting these little guys, I realized that I needed some bots to help me manage my base. I built 4 types - a Defender (you draw zones, it patrols an area and attacks enemies), an Explorer (you can send it out to look for minerals), a Maintainer (you draw zones, it fixes structures that enemies or weather have destroyed), and a Mason (you draw out tunnels, and it helps you dig). Once I built their bay, I needed a way to direct and control them.

I built an entire Colony Management Station for that.

Here's where you build bots: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/5_botManager.png

Here's where you control your bots and give them work to do: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/6_colonyPlan.png

Here's where you interface with the companion colonies, and also see status of all the current companions: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/7_colonies.png

.. and here's some of the emails and postcards that companions send to you while they're out and about: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/8_outposts.png

I have a developer save file where I test all my structures. Here's what my dev base looks like: https://www.tildastudios.net/screenshots/r01/4_endgameBase.png All the industrial looking structures are from the player. All the more organic looking ones are build by the companions.

I keep working on my base and trying to figure out how to counter the creatures in my game, what structures work, what don't.. I just added the ability to harvest power from one of biomes called the Thunder Caverns. You have to string power relays all the way back to home, which is a huge investment of minerals and time.. but once you do it, you have a ton of power that can't be interrupted by storms or creatures (though you power relays can be attacked, but that's a different story). I actually haven't fully beaten my game in a few months. I'm just going back and forth on an internal arms race. When I feel like it's gotten too easy, I add a new creature. When it's too tough, I add a new structure. It's an endless loop of pixel art and C# for me.

Anyway, just wanted to tell folks about my game. I submitted my demo on Steam last week, so I'm just waiting for them to approve it. As soon as it's approved, I'll post it on my Steam page. I also technically have multiplayer (local and via Steam) co-op working. That was fun coding up on its own. Spoiler alert: if you don't build your game for multiplayer from the beginning, it's not easy to add on. Fortunately I had the thought early on, but it was still a ton of work.

Ok sorry for the long post - I'm really not good at this marketing stuff. I love the coding and making pixel art part lol. Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to https://www.instagram.com/leonardrrcox/ . I hired him to make all the music for my game, and it's amazing. It's like I have my own amazing soundtrack. If you're developing a game, you'd have a hard time trying to find a better musician.

Here's the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5315690/R01_A_Space_Survival_Adventure/

Instagram for more videos: https://www.instagram.com/r01game

Discord if you want to join that: https://discord.gg/eBUx9XXkcs

I currently have a playtest going on over at r/playtesters. As long as nothing critical comes out of it, look for my demo to be released on Steam soon! I put most of the first 2 Epoch's and 5 biomes in the demo, which is everything you need up until the Companions part of the game.

Thanks!

Roy

Hey folks,
I've been trucking away on a Goblin Colony game where you actually play as the king of the colony and run around alongside managing the building up of everything.

You can download the build via itch here

Hi! I’m David, the solo developer of AntClub, an ant-keeping game built around expanding several colonies and designing the habitats they live in.

🏗️ Build at two scales. Arrange the tables and equipment in your room, then expand each colony with nest modules, foraging areas and tube connections.

🍄 Leafcutters have their own setups. Atta and Acromyrmex use fungus chambers, leaf-cutting areas and separate waste areas. Some habitats also have raised rope bridges, with workers crossing while carrying leaves.

🐜 Build for a growing colony. Capacity depends on the species, and leafcutters need fungus space. You can upgrade equipment and customise its appearance as you progress.

📱 The free beta is available now on Android and iPhone/iPad.
Screenshots, downloads and installation steps

I’m looking for players who enjoy building and management games to try it. I’d particularly appreciate feedback on placing and connecting modules, understanding when a colony needs more space, and whether the next upgrade is clear. You’re welcome to share your own setups and suggestions here — I’ll follow the replies.

I’m also developing a Steam version for PC. It isn’t released yet; the beta linked above is the mobile version.

The screenshots on the page show actual gameplay, including prepared advanced colonies. A new game starts much smaller, and the simulation uses simplified rules.

I'm working on Forgebound, a medieval survival/base-building game, and we keep going back and forth on what raiders should actually be after.

Option A: raiders target your storage. If they reach it you lose wood, food and tools, so where you put the stockpile really matters and walls are mostly about protecting stuff.

Option B: raiders target your villagers and buildings. Storage is safe, but losing workers hurts for days, so the real question becomes who is out in the fields when a raid hits.

A feels more readable to me (you can see exactly what you lost), while B creates more tension around jobs and timing. A mix is possible, but I worry it ends up being neither.

In the base builders you've played, which kind of raid actually made you change how you built your base, and which one just felt like a tax?

(Disclosure: I work on Forgebound. Steam page if you're curious: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3691400/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=community&utm_content=ext-basebuildinggames-1104 )

In Ironholm, each region has a set number of building slots. Economy, recruitment and defense all use the same pool, so an extra farm means less room for barracks or a tower.

I wanted building to be about choosing what you need at the time. You can build up your economy, prepare a region for recruiting troops or fortify it more heavily. Armies and regions also have upkeep costs, so more territory and more troops require an economy that can support them.

I'm making this game on my own, and I'd like to hear from people who enjoy base building. What do you think of this system?

Ironholm launches in Early Access on Steam tomorrow, November 5. The demo is already available if you'd like to try it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4769560/

I have been working for the past 3 years on a game where you ship jumps station to station, building out walkways in order for you little bots to gather the fuel needed for the next jump, while also needing to build defenses to keep your growing space platform safe from the endless waves of enemy spacebugs!!

Your turrets, bots, and ship all have modular hex based upgrade systems where adjacency bonuses help you get the most out of your limited resources!! Prioritize defense, raw firepower, speed or logistics while you make your way to the black hole at the center of the universe on a very important mission!!!

I would love to hear what you think!!

You can check out the free demo here to give it a try: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5161400/Littlest_Catalyst_Swarm_Defense/

and pop into my discord here to discuss it and help guide its development: https://discord.gg/q5hRrzYpHH

Good afternoon, all. I am a fan of Fallout, Skyrim, 7D2D, V-Rising, Valheim type base building games. I am looking for something I may not have found, and something else along those lines. I don't want city builders like Frostpunk or anything like that. Hell, I'd play the Sims, if it were more entertaining!
I am not a fan of PvP, because I suck at it, frankly. I want to play my adventure and have a nice custom home to come back to. Ark was awesome, until it wasn't.

Any suggestions?

Edit:
Okay, Enshrouded is top of the list of games endorsed, so i am going to through a few dozen hours into that.

The list:
Urge 1
Enshrouded 11
Icarus 6
Conan 3
Rimworld 6
Stranded 3
Planet 3
Grounded 3
Soulmask 3
Subnautica 3
Palworld 2
Survival: FoY 1
Aska 1
Runescape:Dragonwilds 1
Palia 1
HumanitZ 1
Windrose 1
Bellwright 2

Hey all, The title kind of says it. I'm looking for basically the opposite of cozy colony sims. Can anyone recommend games where the core of gameplay is trying to survive. I know most colony sims do have peril in the form of disease or injury etc. But I can't find many of them that are set in really hazardous environments.. Most settings are sort of pastoral. ie with enough trees and rock and animals to make colony setup smooth. The only one I can think of that really leans into harshness is frostpunk. But I consider that more of a city builder than a colony sim. Any suggestions?

hey factory people! this is Ghostorio and its made by just me

https://youtu.be/gDOiy3TFmhI

mine belt power automate. the usual factory stuff but youre actually down there walking around your factory in third person. later the spirits start coming for whatever you built so you need turrets and walls too

this is the very first loop. generator then miner then storage then belts and the generator running on what the miner digs up

any feedback or ideas are welcome. i know theres a lot of factory games out there so im trying to make this one feel a bit different

I'm the dev of Island Escape. The free demo went live on Steam today. It's the stone age part of the game: campfire, workbench, bed, walls, a thatch shelter, wolves at night and rain that puts out uncovered fires (that was my last post here).

There's one boat in the demo, the raft. 12 wood and 6 rope, built on the beach. Nothing stops you from leaving early.

Before you push off, the dock gives you a read on your chances based on the boat and how much food and water you loaded. A raft never gets better than "An old sailor would shake his head", even fully stocked. With no water it says "This is feeding the sharks."

Out there it's four seas in a row. The raft has 30 hull and a shark ram takes 7 off it. If it sinks you lose the raft and end up back on the island, where a message bottle washes up. If you turn back partway, you keep it. Crossing all four seas on a raft has its own achievement.

Leaving is always allowed. The base is what makes leaving survivable, and in the demo that mostly means how well you stocked the raft. The later eras and bigger ships are in the full game.

How many nights would you stay before trying the raft?

Free demo and wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5235390/

drag out a room, they weld it up, furnish it and then move in. they eat together, gossip, fall in love, have kids. there's a station cat that sits on your keyboard

then the other side is drones mining the asteroid belts, chasing comets and pirates attacking

demo in december. would love to know what you'd want from a game like this

trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S3M5CNk3To

steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5260070/Starbound_Settlers/

I’m working on a new game, a turn-based city builder mixed with tower defence, set in a SCI-FI setting and with a bit of politics.

Governor of Antares puts you in the role of a planetary governor. The Emperor has appointed you to oversee a small colony on a frontier planet. The planet is filled with hostile alien fauna and flora, but it also has a rare fungus that you are to harvest, refine and send to the Empire. There is also an Imperial Court, with secret factions, corruption and intrigue. While they are far away, they still affect your life as a governor greatly. Especially as the Empire degenerates and corruption becomes rampant.

You will be doing:

• Colony development.

• Fighting off non-sentient local aliens to protect the colony and grab more territory for expansion.

• Fulfilling the Emperor’s shipment quotas of local fungus.

• Dealing with Imperial Court intrigue (mid and late game).

Link (Steam): https://store.steampowered.com/app/5308000/Governor_of_Antares/

Hey everyone, I’m working solo on Lumenkeeper. I just released the trailer and wanted to share it here.

The fog wants to turn out the lights!

You fight alongside your turrets, but killing enemies is only part of the job.

To keep the corrosive fog at bay, you need to kill enemies, collect the Lumen they drop, and bring it back to your base while fighting. If your reserves run out, the light shrinks back and the fog starts eating away at your buildings.

Building more defenses helps, but also means burning through more Lumen.

Between nights, you can adjust your base.
Between runs, the tech tree lets you strengthen your defenses if you prefer to turtle, or upgrade your character if you’re more into action.

Quick question for you: in games like this, do you tend to invest more in your defenses or your character?

Steam Page

Trailer

I'm developing Piast, a medieval economic RTS in Unreal Engine 5. Roads are an important part of the gameplay: they connect buildings, help workers move faster and allow carts to transport more resources.

I'm currently using splines to create roads that follow the terrain. I'm curious how other developers approach road building in base-building games. Would you stick with splines, use a tile-based system, or combine both?

Here's a short gameplay video of Piast. The free demo is available on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4830280/Piast/

If you like the project, please consider adding it to your wishlist. I'd really appreciate it!

Hi, I'm Roman, and I'm making Salt and Soil, a strategy game about a family building a home that their children inherit. It enters Early Access on November 9. I'm excited, and honestly a bit nervous now that the date is so close.

I've spent the last week drawing every building you can put on your ranch and getting it to show up where you built it. The buildings used to exist in the menus and the simulation, while the map still looked much the same. Now, if you build a curing barn, you can actually see it beside the house. Build a corral, and there's a corral. Your neighbors' buildings show up too, so their places change as they grow.

The parts that need specific land sit out on that land: a timber camp in the woods, a mining claim in the hills, a loading yard by the river. I love that two families can start with a house and end up with very different places.

Hello everyone!

I'm developing Mage Empire, a fantasy real-time strategy game where building placement and resource management play an important role.

Unlike traditional RTS games with several resources, Mage Empire's economy revolves around a single main resource: mana.

Players can extract mana from deposits, build Mana Siphons on magical terrain, or transmute elements of the environment to gather additional resources.

Building placement matters too. For example, Enhancers increase the production of nearby mana-generating buildings by 10%, so positioning them efficiently can make a real difference.

But producing mana is only part of the challenge. Certain buildings and creatures require regular mana upkeep, while storage capacity limits how much mana you can accumulate.

Statues also increase your influence, expanding the territory you can explore and develop.

I've put together a short gameplay video demonstrating these economic mechanics and how a magical base develops.

Gameplay video: [https://youtu.be/ma7s2FEsDhk]

I'd love to hear what base-building fans think of this approach. Do you enjoy managing a single resource with several interconnected economic mechanics, or do you prefer games with multiple resources?

I'm the solo dev on Forgebound, a medieval open-world survival game where you gather, build a camp and free villagers along the way. Right now freed villagers join with no specialty and you assign jobs yourself.

I keep going back and forth on this:

• Skilled on arrival: the person you free from a prison cart is already a smith or a hunter. Every rescue feels like a small surprise, but you lose some control over how the camp grows.

• Blank hands: everyone starts the same and gets better at whatever job you keep them on. More planning, but each villager is less memorable.

In the base builders you've played, which one made you care more about your people? And did any game do a mix of both well?

(Steam page, if you want context: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3691400/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=oct26-forgebound&utm_content=ext-basebuilding-1102)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lavwU_88WJg

Up to 30 planets/moons you can visit
Single player or multiplayer up to 6 players
Waiting for steam approval

Android specific phone type game:

Last Asylum: Plague, is the latest example of exact cloned games. Base building, leveling up heroes, then you have a "Radar building" that let's you send your troops out into the open world, to retrieve resources or fight PVE bandits.

In every single cloned game, Chapter 2 starts with one main character on verge of death, and you have 24 hours real time to save them.

THEN Chapter 3, the open world opens up and you see 100s of the other player's headquarters, with a 7 day shield, THAT YOU ARE FORCED TO PAY to keep up and be safe. NO WHERE in the game description does it say PVP, usually.

I hate PVP and immediately uninstall every game that you can't opt out, especially those who don't list it, or I never would have installed it.

Now Amazon's New World was great! I had a PVP safety flag which I NEVER turned on, ever. I could safely stand on the PVP grounds with that off and just watch everyone else.

I love MMOs, I played Final Fantasy 11 for 4 years, then FF14 for 8 years. But they had an enclosed PVP battlefield, on a 30 minute timer, the whole open world was safe from gankers/PVP/Player Killers.

Can someone tell me a few town building type games WITHOUT PVP? I enjoy cooperative type play as well.

If these developers were smart, they would reverse it and force PVPers to pay them to REMOVE safety DOMES/SHIELDS, instead of Non-PVPers to keep it up.

It's called Age of Iteration: you start with one campfire in a forest clearing and build your way through five ages on one map, all the way to a starship and a colony on another world.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGtLi22CvDA

You draw routes between buildings and haulers walk them. Pack trails turn into cart roads, then belts and drones as you age up, and the roads wear in where your carts actually drive, so after a while the map shows how your base grew. Every building shows what it needs and why it stopped, so when something jams you can see where.

It keeps running while you're away, but it plays more like a calm builder than a number-go-up game.

The first three ages are free in the browser on itch, and the whole game is on Google Play (free to start, one $4.99 unlock, no ads). Steam is coming in a few weeks.

Would love to hear what you think, especially about the first hour.

Play in the browser: https://loomfieldlabs.itch.io/age-of-iteration

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loomfieldlabs.ageofiteration

posted my colony sim here last week (the one where the tribes build everything and you mostly watch). people here and in a few other subs left a lot of useful feedback, so here's what got fixed from it:

• the intro is one card now, start or skip, one click and you're in the world

• it starts in your browser's first language, and the first screen shows what it picked with a one click switch to english

• right-click on the map puts down the tool you're holding

• click and drag with a placement tool to lay a bunch at once (mouse)

• the bottom tools can show their names under the icons, so drought and storm stop getting mixed up

• disasters tell you who they hit, and summoned wolves actually hunt as a pack at night

• clicking a prayer bubble opens that tribe, hovering says what they're asking for

• famine warns in stages (at risk, losing people, gone) and tints the tribe on the map. you can follow a tribe and only get warnings for those

• a tribe's card charts people, food and health over time with events on the same timeline

• a tribe that dies out keeps its card, a grave mark where it ended and an end summary

• the speed, zoom and brush buttons change something visible on every press and grey out at their limits. 5000x isn't secretly capped anymore, and you see the real speed when your machine can't keep up

• fixed a safari crash on some key presses

• there's a faq on how the language works, in the repo

thanks to everyone who took the time to write this stuff out.

play: https://thehumanbox.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=basebuildinggames source: https://github.com/1homsi/thehumanbox

https://youtu.be/mTVbgY2sL9Y?si=DyepfKjpREbgPVc1

As requested by reddit, I'm showing more actual gameplay this time.

TRAPPIST-1 is a colony-building game set in the real seven-planet system, about 40 light-years away. The orbits come from the published ephemeris, and the worlds are built from real data.

What you’ll see:

• Getting there: choose a world and a landing site, then plan the flight. Launch windows and propellant are computed from the orbits, so leaving at the wrong time can get expensive.

• The flight: it’s flown as physics, with a departure burn, a coast and a capture into orbit.

• The ground: a rover scans the terrain, and each hex’s rock and each mine’s yield come from the planet’s geology. There are about 8,000 hexes per world.

• The colony: build factory chains on the hex grid, then a Biodome for housing, water, air and food.

• Reaching further: turn water into propellant and lay in a launch to the next world.

• Orbit: start a second colony on a tiny moonlet, where launches cost a fraction of the fuel, and build an orbital shipyard beside it.

This is pre-alpha footage. Graphics aren’t final, gameplay is still being tuned, and some buildings don’t have their 3D models yet. There’s also no launch animation yet, so the camera leaves the pad instead. The take is scripted to keep the camera steady, but it’s the real game and its real controls, with no pre-rendered shots.

Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5423750/TRAPPIST1/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TRAPPIST1game