Promising new colony sim Dawn Apart was announced this week, a sci-fi game drawing from the legacy of Rimworld (opens in new tab) and Factorio (opens in new tab) to create a game that simulates an expedition arriving to build automated factories on an alien world. The native aliens, of course, aren’t thrilled about that—and your colonists might not be either, after they see how spoiled their new home is becoming.
“In DAWN APART you have been sent to the distant planet Aurora to mine resources, maintain a growing settlement of fortune hunters and defend it against the fierce native population. Fulfill the demanding quotas dictated by your contractor – or flip the script and start a rebellion against the greedy corporation exploiting your new home,” says a release from developer Industrial Technology and Witchcraft.
It’s cool to see a game that’s not just automation, but colony sim as well. You’ll have living colonists who have routines and the like to take care of alongside building a factory chain.
The extra-interesting twist is that it’s drawing from the voxel-driven destruction featured in Teardown (opens in new tab), and that’ll matter once you start shooting up towns or coming under terrorist attack from the native life. It’ll also have a lot to do with your goal of digging up the world to mine it—or even terraform it.
With very few exceptions, says the team, the world will be made of voxels. Voxels that have physical properties and can get blown up. Wood will burn, stone will crumble, and iron will shatter.
“For example,” says the team, “if a shot from a laser gun hits a wood voxel it should break and burn through it, causing other flammable voxels to catch fire, while if it hits a very heavy metal it might die and just visually heat up that voxel instead.”
Obviously that’s going to take a lot of work, but the team hopes to make the game’s destruction and automation “truly awe-inspiring” before it releases in the spring of 2024.
Dawn Apart is developed by a fresh indie outfit, Industrial Technology and Witchcraft, based out of Berlin, Germany. You can find Dawn Apart on Steam (opens in new tab).
