Tag: colony
This indie colony sim’s secret weapon: one-on-one interviews with players about what they like
I’m instantly hooked on this colony sim where you build a town on the ocean
Scientists found a new emperor penguin colony by tracking poo markings from space
In honor of this year’s Penguin Awareness day, the British Antarctic Survey announced the existence of a previously undiscovered emperor penguin colony in one of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Antarctica. Scientists spotted the colony, the 66th to be found on the continent, by comparing satellite imagery captured by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and Maxar’s WorldView-3 satellite.
The photo you see below is the one that led the British Antarctic Survey to the colony. The brown stains that contrast against the stark white ice and snow of the Verleger Point in West Antarctica are the accumulated “guano” droppings seabirds like emperor penguins leave behind when they need to relieve themselves. For the last 15 years, the British Antarctic Survey has been searching for new penguin colonies by using satellite imagery to spot the tell-tale poo stains. Of the 66 colonies humans know about in Antarctica, exactly half have been found using satellites.
“This is an exciting discovery,” said Dr Peter Fretwell, one of the researchers who led the study. “[But] like many of the recently discovered sites, this colony is small and in a region badly affected by recent sea ice loss.” As The Guardian points out, emperor penguins are the only known penguins to breed on ice. That makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change. The birds need the ice around their colonies to last between April and September to give their offspring enough time to grow. “If the ice breaks up before that, the chicks fall into the water and drown or freeze,” Fretwell told the outlet. One recent study predicted most emperor penguins could become extinct by the end of the century if the world’s nations don’t find a way to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Dwarf Fortress review: the legendary colony sim gets a welcome facelift for Steam
How the heck do you review Dwarf Fortress? Much like the procedurally generated world spat out at the start of every game, there’s already a huge pile of established lore and history out there from the 16 years it’s been around. It’s like being asked to review Lord of the Rings. It’s a vast undertaking, and there aren’t any friendly eagles on hand to cut through its dense mythos. Prior to releasing on Steam, I had put a few dozen hours into what is now known as Dwarf Fortress Classic (which is still available for free from Bay 12’s website), split over several different periods of time. Thing is, I never really got very far. I’d find a good tutorial, lose a few fortresses to horrible mistakes and then really get established. But then I’d be distracted by the realities of everyday life and by the time I got back to it, I’d forgotten everything and all my resources were hopelessly out of date because of all the wonderful, lovingly detailed updates. Then the cycle would start again.
The good news is that this new version of Dwarf Fortress released on Steam does an admirable job of making the game considerably more approachable. I was apprehensive at first, but then something clicked and I lost the first of what would be many afternoons over the past fortnight, safe in the knowledge that when I eventually stepped away from this goliath, I’d be able to come back without feeling overwhelmed and have to start all over again. It’s still good ol’ Dwarf Fortress, but this is the most accessible the game has ever been while still being deep, demanding and a legend worthy of being inscribed on a mudstone goblet.
Jumplight Odyssey is a sci-fi colony builder inspired by ’70s anime
Another day, another space disaster to solve – but fortunately, Jumplight Odyssey makes everything a joy to look at, even when the airlock seal is leaking. A sci-fi colony management game inspired by ’70s anime, Jumplight Odyssey will be coming to Early Access on PC in 2023, and developer League of Geeks has just debuted a lovely cinematic trailer that explains the premise.
RELATED LINKS: Jumplight Odyssey reveal trailer, Games like RimWorld, Best management games
Armello devs are shooting for FTL meets Rimworld with their new roguelite colony sim
Hot on the heels of their Solium Infernum announcement at the end of September, the studio behind strategy RPG Armello have announced another new game they’re working on during tonight’s PC Gaming Show Preview stream. It’s called Jumplight Odyssey (or “J-Lo” for short, as League Of Geeks studio director and co-founder Trent Kusters affectionately referred to it during an early preview presentation I attended last week), and it’s a starship roguelite colony sim that has big 70s anime vibes. Specifically, Star Blazers, the English adaptation of Leiji Matsumoto’s seminal Space Battleship Yamato, with which Jumplight shares a lot of its core visual DNA.
In it, you play as Princess Euphora, who’s on a mission to save her people from the space conquering Zutopans, jumping from planet to planet in search of their Forever Star. It’s not due to arrive in early access until sometime next year, but I’ve seen a sneak peek of it running in an early alpha build, and lemme tell ya. FTL, Rimworld and Two Point Hospital likers (bear with me on that last one) are going to want to take note of this.
RimWorld modders are making their own colony sim with real-time tactics combat
I didn’t create a disaster in this complex spaceship colony sim: It started that way
Hit colony sim Rimworld’s next expansion will let you have kids (finally)
BioTech, the game’s third major expansion, will also let you splice genes