Described by the developers as 'A sim with a real personality!', Space Colony is a simulation game developed by Firefly Studios that places you in charge of a small space colony (fancy that) on an isolated planet, where you gather, process, and sell resources, complete missions, keep your colonists happy, and deal with whatever crises pop up. Best described as a fusion of Stronghold and The Sims.
Gameplay involves placing structures such as mining facilities, assigning tasks to colonists, and then making sure they carry out those tasks properly. You also have to take care of the needs and wants of your colonists, buy and sell resources, furnish the interiors of the biodomes your colonists inhabit, and manage the colony's defense if/when necessary. Eventually, you will have to deal with tourists as well. There are two campaigns in story mode, one military-focused and one civilian-focused, as well as single missions, a freeplay mode, and robust map and campaign editors.
The game has a fansite here
with a demo download and lots of game info. It's also available on GOG.Com for $9.99. An Updated Re-release called the Steam Edition was released on Steam on April 30, 2015.
Your crew of social misfits are:
- Venus Jones — Only Sane Woman. The least dysfunctional person on the crew (relatively speaking), and the main character in the campaign.
- Tami La Belle — Alcoholic slacker.
- Dean Jefferson Brown — medical student, obsessed with cleanliness.
- Barbara Leechworth — Old, cantankerous Corrupt Corporate Executive.
- Daisy Willowreed — Granola Girl.
- Billy-Bob Perkins — Friendly but dumb former chicken farmer.
- Greg Chesterton — Egotistical sexist jerk.
- Candy Simspons — Dumb Blonde shopaholic.
- Stig Svensson — Norwegian biker.
- Babette Devereux — Rich Bitch. Utterly and hilariously useless.
- Hoshi and Kita
- 'Nailer' McBride — Violent Glaswegian football fan/convicted murderer.
- Capt. Charles Worthington — Stereotypical Officer and a Gentleman type guy.
- Nikolai Volkov — Ukrainian scientist.
- Ashia Green — Former athlete obsessed with fitness.
- Vasilios Cosmos — Emotionless Guy, keeps going on about the stars.
- Bhoomi Sharma — Elderly lady from India.
- Mr Zhang — Cool Old Guy. The only cybernetics expert in the game; can build androids and such.
- "Slim" — Spoiled 15-year-old skater punk who was abandoned by his parents for being annoying.
This game provides examples of:
- Adoring the Pests: One sidequest has your complex become infested with mouse-like aliens. Tami takes a liking to them.
- Artificial Stupidity:
- Stop letting the air run out!
- Stop letting the colony's batteries drain!
- Stop walking out into the crossfire during firefights!
- Why are you parking the mining dozer in the mess hall?
- Auto-Doc: Medibays. Anaesthetic not included.
- Bad Boss: Mister Waterhouse, full stop.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies:
- Big ants that will eat your food, among other things.
- Giant bees, one of the first enemies you face in the campaign.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Barbara Leechworth, one of your colonists, and 'Mr. Waterhouse', the generally unpleasant CEO of your company (although he has his moments). To the point that, in the Demo, you have to build an android to defuse a bomb that would destroy the entire colony. Why? Because it's cheaper than evacuating the colony.
- Death Is Cheap: Well, it's actually expensive (as your boss keeps reminding you), but nevertheless it's possible to resurrect deceased colonists on site. In addition, they always come back for free in the next campaign mission, provided that there isn't a "keep everyone alive" objective.
- Death World: Many planets fit the bill, but planet Hunt in Sandbox Mode fits this trope to a T.
- Dysfunction Junction: With the possible exception of Venus, everyone has some kind of problem or quirk or flaw or dark secret.
- Earth That Was: In the game's backstory, humanity abandoned Earth due to resource depletion and severe overcrowding and now lives mostly in space, except for a subculture of so-called 'Landers' that colonize isolated planets. The Landers generally come from the absolute dregs of human society, and you play as the leader of a group of them. Humanity has only done this recently since everyone's background says they're from a country on Earth.
- Energy Weapon: Of the "visible beam, instant travel" type.
- Fantastic Vermin: One sidequest has your complex become infested with mouse-like aliens. Tami decides to keep them as pets.
- Future Food Is Artificial: Your colonists' main food is a green nutrient sludge processed from the local vegetation, which is then reconstituted into cheeseburgers and booze. However, if you are feeling really fancy you can have space chicken at the restaurant.
- G-Rated Sex: A quickie under the covers.
- Kill It with Fire: A rather severe way of dealing with the weed problem.
- Neural Implanting: Tired of waiting for your workers to learn? Use the Training Pod to download the info into their heads.
- Nobody Poops: Every bathroom-related need - showering, going to the toilet, shaving, whatever - is abstracted into a single 'hygiene' need bar.
- No Water Proofing In The Future: Go on, sent an android to the hygiene pod, see what happens...
- In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face: Averted, in game the only way to tell spacesuit wearing colonists and tourists apart is their name floating above their heads. However, the various in game videos still use this.
- Planet Looters: Humanity.
- Planet of Hats: Averted with the Fribulans. Although they're generally hostile to you, non-hostile groups can be encountered.
- Settling the Frontier: The premise of the game.
- Snooty Sports: Charles is an Officer and a Gentleman with an upper-class background and is also an avid golfer.
- Surrounded by Idiots and slackers and egomanics and hypochondriacs and so on...
- The Shrink: You can buy a counselling robot to help restore a colonist's mental stability, but it does nothing for their long term problems. There is also a detention facility which serves the same purpose.
- Truth in Television:
- Zhang does not get along with Hoshi and Kita, reflecting Japan and China's...difficult relationship.
- Bhoomi is always hesitant when made to use the bar. Alcohol is illegal in India.
