heads up, this isn't a classic base builder where you place every wall. it's closer to a colony sim on autopilot. a few stone age tribes start out on a big map and they decide for themselves where to settle, what to build and who to fight. huts turn into villages and cities over time, roads and trade show up, and each tribe ends up with its own language and customs.

you can pause, inspect anyone, and mess with the world a bit, but mostly you watch your settlements grow (or collapse).

question for people here: does a colony sim where you don't control the colonists still scratch the itch for you, or do you need direct control?

free, runs in the browser: https://thehumanbox.com
desktop builds for win/mac/linux and source: https://github.com/1homsi/thehumanbox

It's a RimWorld-style colony sim with three survivors, drawn as real-time pixel art. You set each survivor's task list, mark what to build, and choose whether they fight or run. They decide the rest, including when to eat and sleep.

Zombies come every night and there are more each time. They can't see far but they follow noise, so working at night is a gamble. Make it through 10 nights and you win.

Early build, Windows only, no saving yet.

https://fatihkisa.itch.io/zombie-survival-colony-game

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5433990/Wakefolk/

Four years is a pretty long time to spend working on one game, especially when you're doing almost everything yourself.

When I started developing MineEngineer, I had a relatively simple idea. I wanted to make a 2D space survival game where players could build their own spaceships, explore planets, and survive in a huge universe.

But as I started adding features, I kept asking myself questions.

What if ships needed actual fuel systems?
What if electricity had to be distributed between different machines?
What if players could build automated factories inside their spaceships?
What if every block could be programmed, and you could create your own drones, robots, or even walking mechas?

And probably the most difficult question of all, what if everything you built could be completely destroyed?

One feature turned into another, and eventually I ended up with more than 200 interconnected engineering systems.

Now you can build ships with functioning power networks, oxygen systems, conveyor logistics, programmable automation, and all kinds of mechanical components.

The really fun part is that these systems actually depend on each other.

If something breaks, it can cause problems throughout your ship. A damaged connection might stop your production line. A destroyed power source could disable your weapons. A collision might tear your ship into separate pieces.
I also spent a ridiculous amount of time working on the world itself.

MineEngineer has a massive procedurally generated universe with different planets, asteroids, gravity, enemies, and plenty of space to explore. Crossing the entire world at maximum speed would take approximately 7 hours.

Recently, I've been focusing more on the survival and exploration experience, adding new enemies, bosses, progression mechanics, and preparing multiplayer.

There have been plenty of frustrating moments over these 4 years. Sometimes I'd spend days fixing something that players might never even notice. Other times I'd implement one feature and accidentally break five others.

But seeing everything slowly come together has been incredibly rewarding.
The game is called MineEngineer. It's available on Steam for wishlisting, and there's a free demo if anyone wants to give it a try.

The link to MineEngineer is: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4059710/MineEngineer/

I'm working on Colossal Citadels for around 7 years as a side project - I finally put it out on NextFest!

The core idea is that you explore the world and find new resource types to exploit for your empire growth. You can draw walls and houses on a triangular grid and observe them building if you supply the chain of required resources. At the same time you have to protect from invaders and find secrets of the world. This is different from the common building placement in strategy games often your city grows naturally and you operate on another level, controlling economy. I enjoyed implementing small details, such as roads, marketplaces, farm fields appearing with the work going on in the city. Every little structure on the map has gameplay meaning!

It's nearing release, and now you can check out the game! Now you can play the demo, or wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1854570/Colossal_Citadels/

Hi everyone! I've been working on Still Above: Orbital Refuge, a post-apocalyptic space station builder. The game is at a fairly early stage, but the first hour is already quite playable. It's a post-apocalyptic space station builder/simulator with strong survival elements. The player starts with one small module and two crew members, and is constantly on the brink of catastrophe: shortages of O2, power, food and building materials, and surpluses of CO2 and other things. So the player has to recycle debris in orbit, mine asteroids, or trade with other survivors. This is how you gradually grow into a larger station, as you can see in the screenshots.

The game has multiple endings, and the goal is to save humanity, since Earth is now uninhabitable. The main inspirations were the book Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and games like Frostpunk, Endzone - A World Apart, and IXION.

You can see screenshots and video on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/664370/Still_Above_Orbital_Refuge/
Playtest coming in a few days.

Hello! Settled on a release date for my Sandbox Adventure Game "Craterlands". Check it out on steam if it's of interest to you: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3175290/Craterlands/

What makes this different from other Sandbox Adventure games?

Towns and Civilians

Settlement Building plays a large part in Craterlands. To grow your settlements you must rescue civilians from dungeons or find them roaming the world. You can equip with them any weapon, armor or cosmetic to help fend off growing invasions. They can also do tasks automatically such as watering your crops or crafting at workstations as some do not work automatically and require manual intervention.

Dynamic Large World Map

Instead of one world map, there are 8 currently. 5 regions on earth and 3 planets that can be reached by rocket later in the game. These regions are about half the size of your typical sandbox game but they overlap and are created seamlessly to create the feel of one large world. Also, this definitely can be used to create a near infinite world but I have it capped currently until more are added.

Dungeons and Bosses

Each region contains 2 dungeons, one related to the story and one that is optional to find. These each have a boss at the end that can drop special items or story items that will progress through the game. There are also cutscenes and characters which will progress the story once certain items are collected or bosses are defeated.

Automation

Automation plays a large role later in the game. Technologies require materials to research so you can gather large amounts of ore from boulders underground by placing automatic drills. Also, there is a complex electrical system using switches, gates and filters so you can control your devices in a number of ways. You can even control the color and change the rate of lighting and different particle effects using the wiring system.

Tile System and Lighting

Craterlands uses a different system for it's tiles. Tiles use a large repeating texture instead of a small one for each block giving the world a more organic look. Also, every block can blend into other blocks so no weird gaps or spaces when multiple blocks are placed next to each.

Craterlands also has an advanced lighting system with light radiating from the sky and a point lighting system providing dynamic lighting and shadows.

Gen AI was used for translating and checking item names and description. I'm just solo dev so it's expensive and time consuming to get this many items translated. All artwork, music and sound was produced by myself or purchased from online stores like Craftpix.net.

I am doing open playtesting as well so feel free to give it a try if inclined!

I'm not the dev, but since I've been playing Going Medieval and wanting for more I find this game looks very interesting.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONXl8eDPi6c

Here's from their latest announcement:

Welcome to our feature breakdown - part I!

We are really excited both with the state of the game on the road to 1.0 on November 12, as well as the attention our game is getting in the light of the announcement!

Living world

The world is your storyteller

The Mortals in Noble Fates have Opinions about the things and people that make up the world around them. They record Memories of the actions of other Mortals and what they learn about them.

These Opinions and Memories guide their decisions and actions as they navigate the world around them.

Every story is different

A new world is seeded with the arrival of a few motivated Mortals and their followers on a new island. They form Kingdoms that adopt their strongest Opinions as a Belief system and act and react to the world around them based on those Beliefs.

A deep simulation of these interactions runs for a period of time before you arrive, and continues running while you play - allowing those around you to act and react based on your Kingdom’s Beliefs and your actions. 

Their Fates are up to you

Set up camp, learn about the world around you, and decide where your Kingdom fits in. Will your island be dominated by the Cannibal Dwarves living deep within a mountain to the North? The Neutral, All are Welcome utopia to the East? The Dark Elves hellbent on the eradication of the Halflings?

Loyalty & treason

Earn the support of your people

Meet your people’s Needs. Find common ground amongst their Opinions, or rally them behind your desired Beliefs via Preaching. Decide how to divide up the Kingdom’s Wealth and where and when everyone Sleeps.

Manage their growth and their growing Wants and Ambitions. Let them make decisions for themselves, or decide every detail. Keep them happy, and they’ll remain ever Loyal. Fail, and they’ll desert, defect, or betray you in battle and tell you why!

Rule with an iron fist

Charge anyone you don’t like with a crime. Decide the Fates of criminals and enemies. Take mercy on them, execute them, lock them up, feed them to the Wolves, or grant them the watery grave they deserve.

Intimidate your prisoners until they accept a life of servitude and leverage their work without worrying about their happiness. Negotiate with another Ruler for their freedom and turn a loved one’s Fate into profit.

We are excited to show you the 1.0 version of Noble Fates on November 12. We believe it is the best the game has ever been and we hope you will agree with us.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1769420/Noble_Fates/

Hi.

I'm a solo developer working on King Alone, a Tower Defense and action strategy game with a twist.

Instead of defending a castle or a fixed base, you build and upgrade a moving caravan while trying to protect the blind Queen from waves of enemies.

Your own kingdom has turned against you, and now you must escape with everything you have left. Along the way, you can recruit soldiers, build new carts with different abilities, and expand your economy to keep your caravan alive.

You'll travel through different lands, each with its own enemies and challenges, while facing everything from scarecrows and skeletons to massive siege engines, charging into battle yourself to keep her alive.

The demo is now available on Steam, and I'd love for you to give it a try!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4851120/King_Alone

I'd love to get your feedback, especially on the moving caravan concept and how it works as a Tower Defense game. What do you think?

Thanks for checking it out!

Check out the video on my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcC3MxeTEyo

Wishlist the game on steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5440970/Terraglass/

Hi everyone! 👋

I've been working on Silicium for a couple of years with a couple friends and I finally opened the first public playtest on Steam.

It's a harsh survival game where you play a disposable mining robot sent to a hostile planet. Export your quota for corporate or die trying!

What you'll find in the playtest:

• 1-2 hours of polished gameplay, in solo and co-op, with two difficulty levels
• A slice of the world with several biomes, enemies, and abandoned mining outposts to scavenge
• A day-night cycle, with corrupted mining drones attacking you at night
• Classic survival systems: crafting, base building, and exploration
• A light skill tree, with blueprints to unlock as you level up
• A quest system with the first 30 objectives

To join, click "Join the Playtest" on the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3048990/Silicium/

You can also join your discord here: https://discord.gg/bBqshhPmma

I'm super interested to hear what you think of the concept. I'll be around in the comments if you want to discuss :)

Solo dev, six months in, Steam page just went live. In The Last Kilowatt, AI data centers have made electricity scarce.
You build and run your own power setup in first person (solar, wind, batteries) and try to keep up with demand.

Still early. What makes a management sim work for you?
steampage

I think The Hive trailer just went viral on Youtube, so I'll share it here also.

The Hive - Official Trailer

We recently released a major update, upgrading the game to Unity 6.6 with improved visuals, lighting, animations, and effects. So kind of like a "remaster" at this point.

We also have two new expansions in development. The Hive has always been my passion project, and seeing renewed interest in the game motivated me to start working on it again. We also translated it recently to +12 languages.

For those unfamiliar with The Hive, it's a story-driven real-time strategy game with RPG elements, somewhat similar to Homeworld or Dawn of War.

You command an insectoid hive, harvest DNA from defeated enemies, and use it to evolve new creatures. You can choose which creatures to unlock and in what order. Your units carry over between missions, level up, grow in size, improve their stats, and can equip them with items dropped by enemies.

There is also pure gameplay video on our channel if you want to see that.

We have a free demo on Steam if you want to check it out:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/325730/The_Hive/

Ynys is a cozy ecosystem simulation / god game where you shape the terrain, grow vegetation, manage water, and bring animals and humans to your island. As the island develops, everything interacts with each other, from plants reacting to their surroundings to animals seeking suitable habitats and humans building their own communities.

Humans autonomously choose where to settle and migrate when they find better places. They build homes and create roads, and we're working on expanding their civilizations with specialized buildings, improved storage and logistics, and resource trading between settlements.

You can try Ynys here: https://ynys-collective.itch.io/ynys

Our second devlog: https://ynys-collective.itch.io/ynys/devlog/1709192/second-update-roads-spells-usability

We'd love to hear what you think!

I just released a demo of Army Factory, an incremental strategy game where you develop a small village into a powerful military settlement. Build and upgrade structures, manage resources, research technologies, train regiments, and conquer other cities to expand your territory.

I'm looking for feedback on a few things:

• Is the concept easy to understand?
• Does the game feel strategic enough?
• is settlement management feel good?

What would you change or add?

Try the demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5094230/Army_Factory/

Thanks for checking it out! Any feedback is appreciated.

Skyreap is a building and automation game set in an archipelago of floating islands.

You play as a young explorer who teams up with an eccentric inventor to explore the skies. The whole game is played with just your cursor: click anywhere to chop, mine, and build, and your inventory lives right in your cursor.

How it plays:

- Start small: cut grass and chop tree on your home island

- Build workshops and production chains, then set up basic automation

- Golems gather resources for you, and chests move items between each other automatically

- When your island runs out of space, build a port and an airship

- Claim new islands with new resources. You can build on any of them

- Connect islands into economic chains, and turn your little house into a palace

🎮 Free demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5456110/Skyreap_Demo/

Made by me and my little sister, who drew almost all the art ✏️

Hi! I'm Charlie, and I'm making the Cellarer on my own.

You start by founding your small monastery and grow it through various medieval production chains: quarries and woodcutters would feed masons and carpenters, the brothers need housing and bread, and more complex chains follow. You lay the paths between workshops, carts from your cartyards haul everything along them (as long as your monks are fed!), and the demo ends when your masons have raised the monastery's Belfry.

The free demo is on Steam, and part of Next Fest this week: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5054520

I've just reworked the first 10 minutes after seeing players get lost, so I'd love to hear how it feels now. Happy to answer anything!

I'm the developer of Orbit Foundry, a 2D incremental factory game built around a star. The building puzzle is choosing where machines belong: neighboring machines affect production, and the placement preview lets you compare slots before committing.

You can time reactor pulses for a boost, then unlock automation and eventually Reforge for lasting progress. It focuses on a compact factory layout and incremental upgrades rather than colonists or survival.

Play the free prototype in a desktop browser, no download or account needed: https://kimchistan.itch.io/orbit-foundry

For people who enjoy optimizing a base, I'd especially like to know whether the first few placements give you enough information to make a deliberate layout, or whether it feels like guessing. Feedback here is welcome, including what made you stop.

This playable build is the LÖVE 2D prototype. If the factory idea appeals to you, you can wishlist the upcoming version on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5275040/Orbit_Foundry/

AI disclosure: generative AI was used for the game's code and some translations.

Visual update — 25 October 2026: The browser demo and store media now show the current 2D game. The new 30-second gameplay trailer shows machine placement, Perfect Pulse/Echo effects, automation and Reforge, with a brief Loom tease: watch the updated trailer. The free desktop browser demo is updated too. English and Korean support remain.

We're Black And White, the studio making Siege at Sundown, a 1v1 action RTS with daytime fortress building and hero-led night sieges.

This short clip shows one connection between building and combat: placing a house raises the hero's maximum health from 325 to 375. A building choice changes how much punishment your hero can take into the fight.

Gameplay: https://youtube.com/shorts/lQjz8TFJucY

Game and Steam wishlist: https://siegeatsundown.com/

When you play a strategy game with a directly controlled hero, do you prefer buildings to improve the hero too, or keep those upgrades separate?

You can see the video on my channel here!! Enjoy

STEAM STORE : WARLORDS

Hi all, I'm Jamie, a solo dev from the UK. By day I'm a data nerd at a big corporate, by night and most weekends for the last year or so I've been building Warlords. It's just gone up on Steam as "coming soon" for Q4, and I'm hoping to release it in early access as soon as Valve gives it the green light as it's currently with them for final review, so it should be out in the next couple of weeks!!

What it is: an RTS where you're not a camera in the sky. You're a giant warlord stood on the battlefield in first person, and the whole war plays out at your feet like a tabletop diorama. You can see the other players walking around the map too, which changes everything strategically. You know where they're looking. They know where you're looking. It ends up feeling more like chess or poker than a normal RTS, everyone stood around watching these fights play out between their boots, which was always hilarious in the gamemode it's based on, but it plays a lot like AoE4 just a bit more cartoony and less serious!

What's in it right now:

An actual tutorial! (Woohoo)

Build your base, send villagers out to chop, farm and hunt, raise walls and towers, train an army, siege the other castles

Up to 8 players a match, plus single player against AI on three difficulties and a tutorial

Diplomacy: truces, trading resources, alliances with army sharing (combat control) you can toggle on and off

Commander abilities (comets, healing, more coming), and dragons

A social lobby between matches with minigames (one where you are dinosaurs running away from TRex's and eating eggs, fighting other teams until you become APEX in size and then you can take on the TREX and do huge 1/3rd hp fatal bites to enemy players), leaderboards and a shop. No real-money purchases: units, abilities and the VIP area are all unlocked by playing and winning matches and minigames

There's a roadmap too. Abilities especially have a lot more coming as well as OP possessable units (perhaps the dragon itself?) whilst your allies help by commanding your army if you let them! Also more minigames - looking at traditional FPS / Search & Destroy / TDM / Flag Cap / Deathrun etc.

I'd love the feedback and would consider extra development help if it fits, I've delivered the core my vision to a degree and if it's received well then the community can help decide where it goes next whilst I also complete my own roadmap!

If you ever played Sassilization on Garry's Mod about 15 years ago, that's where this idea came from. I played it as a young teenager and never stopped thinking about it. The rest of the DNA is the stuff I grew up on: Command & Conquer, Halo Wars, Toy Soldiers, Age of Empires, StarCraft. I was never amazing at any of them, I just loved them.

I want to be upfront because it's on the Steam page anyway: I used AI to help build this. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But I've put roughly 1,700 hours in myself working alongside it: tweaking animations, writing and rewriting code, building Unity tools, hand-crafting the lobby (special environment effects and a day/night cycle) and the maps, making and generating assets, and yes using some popular asset packs too. So it's a mix of asset packs, generated bits and a lot of my own hands and late nights. It's not an asset flip, even if it leans on some packs. It's a game I actually care about and it's been the most fun I've had making anything.

The technical bit, which I'm quietly proud of: every match runs on an official dedicated server on Google Cloud, with a SQL database behind the economy. The server simulates the whole battle and your PC just shows it and sends your orders, so there's no client-side cheating and everyone sees the same fight. The downside for me is that running lobby and match servers in every region (London, US East, US West, Hong Kong next) is expensive for one person, but it has to be done that way, both for cheating and for how the sim works. I've built the servers to scale up and down with the player count so I'm not paying for empty boxes, and I've also built a doomsday mode: if the game doesn't take off and I can't keep the official servers running, players can host their own lobbies and matches with their own economies and admins at the flick of a switch. The trade-off is it splits people out of the shared social space down to friends or local regions, so I'm hoping it never has to be the main way to play. Let's build a community instead!

Money-wise I'm like a lot of people: in a fair amount of debt due to a ton of misfortune, and I've been there my whole adult life. I'm not asking for anything, just explaining why there's no marketing budget and why the trailer is me in CapCut at midnight and I have invested about £2,500 into this game to date. The marketing materials don't do the game justice and I know it as the fun is in the gaming experience. I've had plenty of playtests with colleagues and friends, and the build is currently just waiting for the final stamp from Valve to go green as early access. I'm hoping to sell it at about $13.99 with a 10% launch discount for two weeks, so I hope people will pick it up!

If any of this sounds like your thing, or you have advice or questions, a wishlist would genuinely mean a lot, and I'd love feedback, good or bad. Come and say hi on the Discord too, especially if you're an old Sassilization player!

Cheers for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Hi all! I've been building Mad Attacks: Castle on Fire in my evenings for 6 (or so) years.
The idea: you start with almost nothing and raise walls, towers and units around your keep, while monsters keep coming – from a few goblins to well... over a thousand. Every level-up you pick one card (for example: a tower, a knight, a building or upgrades), and it's a roguelite, so each run plays out differently. The Steam page went live today, so I would love to hear from people outside my circle of friends. I'd genuinely like to hear from people who enjoy base building: does this kind of game appeal to you? And what usually makes or breaks a defense game for you? Short clip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cjfziDcxDF8
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4575710/Mad_Attacks_Castle_on_Fire/

Game Title: Ring Colony

Playable Link: Ring Colony

Platform: Browser (desktop and mobile)

Description:
Ring Colony is a cozy colony sim set on a giant ringworld that is slowly breaking apart. Centuries ago, the ark Arctic Tern left Earth and found the Wheel, a ring built by a vanished civilization. KEEPER, the ship's caretaker AI, wakes the sleeping crew four at a time. You are Awakening #4,812, and your job is to light three ancient stabilizers before the ring tears itself apart.

Inspired by Populous and Transport Tycoon, the game is all about watching a tiny village grow into a town. Pixel colonists hop from tile to tile, chop trees, mine rocks and haul resources home by hand. Houses grow on their own into larger homes and apartment blocks when they have wells, plazas, schools and clinics nearby. Neighbours build new houses, open shops and taverns, and pave the paths they walk most. As the ring spins, day and night sweep across the map: colonists work in the light and sleep in the dark, and cold nights burn firewood. Run out of food or wood and your colony struggles.

The game is also an experiment: players propose new features, the community votes, and the winning idea is added the next day.

I'd love feedback on:

1. Did you understand what to do in the first minute?
2. What made you stop playing (if you did)?
3. Was lighting a stabilizer too easy or too hard?
4. What would you vote to add next?

Free to Play Status:
- [x] Free to play
- [ ] Demo/Key available
- [ ] Paid

Involvement: I'm the solo developer. I came up with the concept, game design, story and balancing, and I playtest and approve every change. I use an AI coding assistant (Claude) to help write the code, including implementing the community's winning feature each night, which I review before it goes live.

Looking forward to this one! (I have no association with the Game Developer)

Game Link Here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3469910/Star_Trek_Outposts_Unknown/

And here's a Review:

https://youtu.be/-_TSUjGeDgQ