Double Fine has just released a little game called Spacebase DF-9, a space station simulator.
My understanding of Spacebase DF-9 pegged it as a sort of cross between Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress. I'd only played the former game, so telling me the game played anything at all like Dwarf Fortress didn't really help. Instead, in my own experience, the game played more like Dungeon Keeper, but in space.
Upon launch, the game first asks you to select a place in the Milky Way galaxy to call your home, with each procedurally generated location containing a variance of resources, threats, and opportunities to hail derelict ships and living visitors. Once you're satisfied with the location you wish to settle in, you're given a seed ship (which you can quickly disassemble for resources) and three astronauts.
Supplied with only eight minutes of oxygen, it's your responsibility to make sure they don't suffocate like Sandra Bullock in Gravity and build up a space base as soon as possible. Because I was messing around with the game, my first ever attempt at playing the game ended in the deaths of all three of my astronauts, who ran out of oxygen before they could construct an airlock and a life support system.
The game opens up once you figure out what you need to do early on, and you'll spend the first few games figuring out how big to make the various rooms and quarters in your base before you settle into the comfortable space of building a base properly. Thanks to the construction guide, you'll know how big the rooms you're making are and what they're capable of fitting.
Constructing a base requires you to mine material from nearby asteroids, the materials which are then processed at your base's resource extraction facilities.
For my part, I built my first real base in a spartan fashion, and it attracted the likes of several new astronauts who arrived at the base in search of honest work. I say spartan because the living quarters was all one room, sparsely filled with beds and few amenities.
The next time I build a base, it'll be filled with proper dormitories and living quarters that don't resemble the inside of a Soviet space gulag.
That being said, there's not much else to do in Spacebase DF-9—at least at the moment. With only a single resource to mine and a few rooms to construct, there little to do beyond creating a simple base to house a few astronauts.
As of Alpha 1, there are no scenarios, no challenges, and few random events outside of incoming derelict spacecraft, which I've yet to figure out how to explore. From what I can see, your astronauts don't need anything in the way of sustenance, nor do they need to have their happiness or stress levels managed. These are all features that could make it into future versions of the game.
Until then, I'm going to stick with the game and see how it develops over the coming months. You can check the game out for yourself through Steam early access.
